The Heart of the North
by Our Pale Companion
Summary: As the War of the Ring unfolds and envelops Middle-Earth, Tauriel finds herself once more fighting alongside Dwarves and Men. Sixty years may have passed since the Battle of Five Armies, but those scars run deep. To protect the North, she will venture deeper into darkness than any Elf has ever dared.
1. Lamentations

_The tales of the War of the Ring and Sauron's fall will doubtless be told for all time, repeated by the great chroniclers of Men until even their dominion passes. For this was their triumph; the moment when all rested upon their shoulders and their character was proven. This is where their history truly began._

 _But the thing about history is, there's only room for so much. Some of it slips between the cracks. The Eldar have forgotten more than Men will ever learn._

 _I will not allow them that luxury._

The Heart of the North

The autumn sun rose over the plains of Dale, creeping strands of light dispelling the pockets of frost dotted across the landscape, winter visitors come too early. A cold gust from the west, breath from the dawn, blew away the mist that had gathered in the night like a scholar dusting down a long-neglected tome. As the world woke, the still of chirping birds and rustling stiff grasses was broken by the sound of horns blowing a deep and booming lament from both sides of the plain; the solemn trumpets of the Free City of Dale, and the mighty war-horns of the Dwarven Kingdom of Erebor. A lament for Thorin Oakenshield, King Under The Mountain.

It was October 10th; sixty years to the day since the last King of Durin's line had given his life in the battle which had become known as Five Armies, living just long enough to see his allies victorious. Ever since, that day had been one of joy and sadness for both the Men of Dale and the Dwarves of Erebor. For both, it was the anniversary of a home regained, and a generation almost wiped out. Thorin's lament continued, echoing and mournful, until the sun had risen entirely over the horizon, leaving nothing but the whistling of the newly-risen wind.

Even from her lofty vantage point at the very edge of Mirkwood's forests, Tauriel could hear the horns as clear as day. She sat still upon her horse until the music had ended, her head bowed in reflection. It took her immediately back there, to her first real battle, her first experience of death. True death, close and personal. Sixty years was nothing for an Elf. For Tauriel, it was yesterday.

"On," she whispered to her horse as the echoes of the horns faded away. She began the descent of the steep hillside which separated the edge of the forest from the plains, tugging this way and that at her reins as Aelfar nervously trotted down the escarpment, whinnying as pebbles loosened beneath his hooves. "Come on, boy," she reassured him. "Nearly there." After a few minutes the ground levelled out, and Tauriel scratched his ears for his troubles. With a pull of the reins he rose to a canter, his hooves clip-clopping noisily along the white stone road which ran between the two cities and Esgaroth.

Its existence would have been unthinkable sixty years ago, when Dale was long-abandoned, Esgaroth a poor and overcrowded shanty town, and Erebor ruled by the dragon Smaug. Those who survived Five Armies would unanimously agree, when asked, that the sacrifice had been worth it. As Tauriel approached the gate-house of the Dwarven kingdom, bells began to chime from both cities; bright and merry from Dale, and deep and throaty from Erebor. On Thorin's Day, after the mourning of the dead, a long and riotous celebration of victory and gratitude would begin; much like the sixty years since the battle.

"Hail, Dwarf-friend!" the lookout on the gatehouse called out. Tauriel raised a hand in greeting. Her green cloak and hood, and Aelfar's grey-spotted coat, had become well-recognised by the Dwarves over the years. Aelfar's front hooves stamped impatiently to the sound of sliding locks and creaking hinges until the mighty front gates swung open, pushed by eight armoured Dwarves. Tauriel thanked them as she urged her horse forward, the bitter chill of the early morning banished as she crossed the threshold by lines of flaming fire-pits. The gatehouse, three stories tall and topped with artillery, was the most outwardly obvious of the defensive improvements made by King Dáin since Erebor was retaken, but decades in the Dwarves' confidence had led Tauriel to understand that hundreds of subtle devices lay hidden in the Kingdom's outer wall. She doubted even Thranduil, with all his hubris, would dare bring his army to its doorstep now, no matter how few Dwarves were inside.

Thankfully, Tauriel thought as she rode slowly to the main gate, that would not happen. In the aftermath of Five Armies, when Elves and Dwarves had shed blood together and died next to each other, the Woodland Realm's long-standing isolationism began to thaw. As his son, Legolas, had travelled the North with the Dúnedain Rangers, Thranduil appointed Tauriel his emissary to Erebor and Dale, thus casting his eyes and ears to his left and right. More open relations between the realms had been to the benefit of all, bringing untold wealth, prosperity and happiness to all three kingdoms. Golden filigree caught the light seductively as the main gates swung open slowly, parting the triumphal carvings of Thorin and Dáin which graced each door. The familiar smell of stone dust, hot metal and roasting meat washed over Tauriel as Erebor exhaled; no matter what the time, the Lonely Mountain's furnaces never slept. Its rocks seemed to provide an inexhaustible supply of iron, gold, silver and gems for its many smithies to labour over. It was little wonder that the Dwarves thought of the mountain as holy, Aulë's gift to his children.

Tauriel dismounted inside the gate, and Aelfar was led away to the stables. A guardsman accompanied her to the rooms permanently kept for her, as a courtesy more than anything else; Tauriel had spent so long in the Lonely Mountain, she felt like she could make her way around it better than most Dwarves, and it sometimes felt more like home than Mirkwood did. Unkind countrymen would sometimes accuse Tauriel of "going native"; an opinion which betrayed their parochial natures.

As the guardsman left her at the door, Tauriel removed her riding-cloak. She had become accustomed to Dwarven styles of dress, wearing beneath it the thick padded jerkin Dwarves favoured while riding, as well as heavy leather gauntlets. She still wore the leather breeches and boots of a Mirkwood border guard, but they were augmented with a thick belt bearing a golden buckle, forged especially for her by Dáin's favour. As she removed her gloves, she noticed a short letter bearing the seal of the King on her nightstand; a standard diplomatic welcome, but with an odd postscript: _Look in the wardrobe._

An exquisite gown in leaf-green, embroidered at the collar and cuffs with golden thread strung with pearls and diamonds, hung in her wardrobe, with a note reading _A token of friendship_. Tauriel held it to the light and examined the way the flames scattered through the thousands of facets, before turning to face the full-length mirror opposite the dresser, holding it in front of her. It was in the Dwarven style, but adjusted for an Elf's proportions; Erebor, for all its renown in metalworking, had no shortage of expert tailors. Beautiful as it was, Tauriel found herself frowning.

"You don't have to wear it," a gruff voice at the door said. "Sure there's plenty of maidens in Erebor who'd chew their beards off for it. They might need it adjusting a wee bit, though."

Tauriel smirked, not turning round. "I knew you were there, Dwalin," she replied. "There isn't a Dwarf alive who can surprise an Elf." Her smile faded and grip on the dress loosened momentarily. She inhaled sharply and laid the dress on her bed before crossing the room to where Dwalin stood in the doorway, clasping his hands and pressing her forehead to his. "It's good to see you again, my friend."

"And you," Dwalin replied as they stepped apart. "You're looking good. Well, for your age."

Tauriel raised an eyebrow. Dwalin's dry humour hadn't changed since she first met him. "You can talk," she retorted. Dwalin had, in fact, aged very well for a Dwarf who'd seen as much trouble as he had. His mighty beard was now grey and his hard, weathered face was lined with wrinkles, but his eyes were as keen and his arms as strong as ever. It was that mix of experience and skill, and his unquenchable thirst to lead the line, that had seen Dáin appoint him Captain of the Guard almost as soon as he'd been crowned.

"Good iron stays sharp," he quipped, inviting himself in and slumping in a chair with a hint of a wince. "You here for the feast?"

"I am," Tauriel replied.

"In a personal or official capacity?"

"Official," she said. "Officially. Unofficially…"

Dwalin smiled sadly, but he couldn't keep it up. "I'm sorry," he said softly, "but she hasn't changed her mind." Tauriel's chest swelled painfully. She nodded briefly once and stretched out an arm to surreptitiously support herself on the dresser.

"I'm...running out of time for her to do so," she replied with a mirthless laugh. "Or rather, she is." Dwalin sat forward in his chair.

"You are the most trusted Elf, the most beloved by any of the Dwarves, in an Age or more," he said softly. "That's got to count for something."

Tauriel cast her gaze downwards, abashed and angry all at once. "It should," she said.

Dwalin sighed. "Ah, come on," he bellowed, leaping up out of his chair and out of the room. "It's too early to be miserable. You fancy a pint?"

"It's seven o'clock in the morning!" Tauriel protested, following him.

"And a slice of toast?"

Even after six decades the sight of an Elf in Erebor, historically the most stubbornly Dwarvish of the Dwarven realms, still caused amusement and rubbernecking. Even a simple breakfast, such as which Tauriel and Dwalin shared in a communal hall, could not pass unnoticed.

"Engrave it! It'll last longer!" Dwalin roared at a pair of teenage Dwarves goggling at the Elf who towered over him from another table. "Honestly," he grumbled as they scurried away, "you'd think they'd have stuff to do at their age."

"Like fighting and interfering with themselves?" Tauriel replied as she prised a brown breadcake open.

"Great and proud Dwarven traditions both," Dwalin mumbled through a mouthful, before washing it down with a swig of beer.

"Are the rest of the Company coming?" She asked, tearing a crust off with her teeth.

"Far as I know," Dwalin replied. "The ones in Erebor, at least. Gloín's still over in the Blue Mountains, with his lad, Gimli." Tauriel nodded. The unspoken question hung over them like a mine-shaft about to collapse. She swallowed and ventured it.

"Has there been news from Moria?"

Dwalin seemed to freeze in place, unblinking and unmoving, as though a wizard had stopped time around him.

"No," he replied after an uncomfortably long silence, immediately helping himself to another deep draught. Tauriel bowed her head.

"Dwalin, I'm so sorry-"

"Don't say that," he growled, wiping his beer-soaked beard. Tauriel's sympathetic stare locked with his eyes, hard and angry. "People always say sorry when someone's dead. Don't know why."

"It's natural," Tauriel said softly, "to feel sympathy for the bereaved-"

"Aye, but I'm not bereaved am I?" He asked seriously. "There's been no funeral. No mourning songs have been sung. His chair still sits in the Great Hall, waiting to be sat in again." He shook his head and drained his mug. "Balin lives," he muttered. "I'm sure of it."

Tauriel smiled weakly. The tendency of Dwarves to attempt to speak reality into being was one of the traits she liked most about them, but sometimes it felt desperate and even sad. This was one of those times.

"I am sure," she replied, refilling his drink.

"How's Prince Fancy-Pants?"

Tauriel raised another eyebrow. " _King_ Thranduil is very well, thank you," she replied. "Life in the Woodland Realm continues much as it has for the last age."

"Still imprisoning innocent Dwarves, then?"

"Are you really still sore about that?"

"I broke a toe trying to kick that door down, you know."

"You've no-one to blame for that but yourself."

"I'm just saying, if it had been a Dwarf prison, I'd have broken my whole foot. Shoddy workmanship."

Tauriel chuckled silently. "Dwarves really were born from stone," she said. "You're as unchanging as the mountain. Save for a bit of weathering," she quipped.

"They say your kind were born by a lake, don't they?" Dwalin retorted. "Explains why you're all so wet."

The remainder of Tauriel's breadcake bounced off of Dwalin's bald head. "Oh, that's it," he announced, mounting the table as Tauriel began to laugh. "I'll teach you to respect your elders!" He boomed, emptying a whole mug of beer over her head. Tauriel let out a yelp and wrestled Dwalin to the floor.

"I'm nearly three times your age!" She shouted, giggling. Dwalin slipped from her sopping grasp and got her in a headlock.

"Don't think I'll go easy on you 'cause you're an old fart," he growled, grinding his knuckles into her scalp as Tauriel shrieked with laughter.

A loud, deliberate cough made both friends freeze in place. They looked up and parted hurriedly, attempting to look as dignified as possible when both of them were soaked through with beer.

"Your majesty," Dwalin mumbled, hands behind his back. Dáin stood, somewhat fatter than he'd been at the start of his reign but no less intense, in a long, luxurious fur robe as red as his hair had once been. Huge, heavy gold rings weighed down his stubby fingers, clinking musically against the equally ornate jewellery in his beard as he stroked it thoughtfully.

"To think," he mused, "that I should live to see my Captain of the Guard disrespecting Dwarven ale by pouring it over the head of an Elf." Dwalin and Tauriel's lips twisted as they suppressed a smile. "We're honoured to have you back, Tauriel." Tauriel touched her hand to her breast and bowed deeply. Years of kingship had mellowed the wild and woolly Dáin Ironfoot somewhat, but his eyes still retained the fire of the youth who had fought so bravely at the Battle of Azanulbizar at an age when most Dwarves were still considered children.

"The honour, as ever, is mine, King Under The Mountain," Tauriel replied, awkwardly pulling her soaking hair behind her shoulders as she straightened. "I hope my Lord Thranduil will not leave it so long to send me back here next time."

"I'd ask where you've been for the last year, but…" Dáin chuckled, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He knew, better than anyone, that Kings had secrets. "Dwalin," he continued, "we need to talk about the feast tonight. And we should probably let Tauriel clean herself up, eh?"

"Aye," Dwalin agreed, crossing to Dáin's side as the two of them headed off, deeper into the mountain. "Bloody Elves!" His voice echoed, out of sight. "Can't take them anywhere!"

Tauriel breathed deeply as her head appeared above the water of her bath, rapidly turning murky. Even before Dwalin's attack the night's ride, begun at the Woodland Realm's eastern gate at midnight, had left its share of dirt and grime. She reached up out of the brass-coated tub and pulled the chain above her, sending another load of hot water trickling down a sluice extending from the wall. She sighed contentedly as her bathwater began to steam until even her Elf-eyes could barely see her hand in front of her face. It amused her to think of how the Elves considered themselves the wisest of all beings in Middle-Earth, yet it was the Dwarves who had perfected the art of indoor plumbing.

As she ran her fingers through hair that billowed like the fluke of a great sea-creature beneath the water, the twinkling gems of her newly-gifted dress on the bed caught her eye through the mist like starlight through clouds. Again, it discomfited her, though she couldn't place why. It was a kingly gift, and no mistake, a dress fit for a queen; Dwalin's earlier words about her standing in the eyes of the Dwarves of Erebor had not been flattery. And yet, she was hesitant to try it on, much less wear it to an event as important as the Thorin's Day feast.

A knock at the door derailed her train of thought. "Who is it?" Tauriel called out.

"Míma, m'lady Tauriel," a squeaky voice replied. "The Lady Nîn sent me."

Tauriel turned over in her tub, surprised. Dáin's mysterious wife, Nîn, was rarely-seen by any at Erebor, preferring to stay in the Iron Hills while Dáin ruled the Lonely Mountain. _She says it still smells of dragon_ , she'd once heard Dáin explain her absence. "One moment," she said, clambering from the tub and wrapping a long, fluffy bathing gown around her body. "Come," she called as she pushed her hair back.

An apple-cheeked, middle-aged Dwarf woman with an upturned nose waddled into the room carrying a huge pair of bags. Ostentatious gold and iron rings and chains in her elaborate hair and sideburns rattled as she walked. She gasped as she beheld Tauriel wringing out her hip-length hair. "Oh, my word," she gushed, "yes, I should be able to work a wonder on you!"

"Forgive me," Tauriel said, embarrassed, "but you are…?"

"Míma," the Dwarf repeated. "The Lady Nîn's personal hairstylist." Míma gave an elegant curtsey. "I must confess, I've wanted to have a go at Elven hair for…" The words dried up in Míma's throat as she caught sight of the dress laying on the bed. Her bags hit the floor with a clunk as she instinctively reached out to caress it. "Durin's Beard," she whispered, her huge eyes glistening with the reflection of gemlight. "It's...it's…" Tauriel scratched her head awkwardly. Dwalin hadn't been exaggerating about the dress, either.

"To be honest," Tauriel admitted, keeping her voice as low as if Dáin himself were eavesdropping, "I'm not sure I'll wear it." Míma gasped with horror, as though she had just confessed a crime.

"Why ever not, m'lady?" She asked, crossing to the bed and delicately lifting a sleeve, running her thumb over intricate golden embroidery. "I don't mind telling you that this probably costs more than I earn in a year!"

Tauriel winced. That was part of the problem. As a Silvan Elf, pretty much the lowest of the low in the great Elven hierarchy, she had imagined as a child that becoming a princess would be a thing of joy and wonder. Instead, after hundreds of years in service to the ruling Sindar Elves of the Woodland Realm, seeing the disparity between their gilded lifestyle and that of her kin, the last thing she wanted to do was add to it. But, as she watched Míma caress the dress as though it were her firstborn, she finally pinned down the reason for her ambivalence.

"It's beautiful," she agreed, taking the other sleeve and admiring the way its gems caught the light a hundred different ways. "And it's a very thoughtful gift. But...it's Dwarven craft. It's the dress of _your_ people. King Dáin may see nothing but a gift to an ally, but to the average Dwarf, seeing an Elf in their fashions, encrusted in jewels…" Tauriel shook her head. "It would be an insult."

"Begging your pardon, m'lady," Míma replied, "but I _am_ an average Dwarf. Average as you can get. And even I know who you are, and what you did for us." Tauriel looked away, abashed. "When we call someone Dwarf-friend, it's not because you're just one Dwarf's friend. You're all Dwarves' friend." Tauriel nodded, forcing a sad smile. _If only that were true,_ she thought to herself as she laid the sleeve down and brushed it flat. "Now," Míma went on, doing likewise. "Sit yourself by the mirror, if you'd be so kind, and let Míma work her magic."

Magic was not far from the truth. Míma's enormous bags contained more accoutrements than Tauriel had ever imagined existed; curlers, straighteners, tongs, knot-pullers, de-frizzers, re-frizzers and more pairs of scissors than she could count, not to mention an apothecary's worth of various poultices, waxes, unguents and lotions. "If only we had some beard to work with," Míma mused mournfully, staring thoughtfully into the mirror from behind Tauriel. Tauriel could not echo her sentiment. "So, how do you usually do your hair?"

The question caught Tauriel speechless. "I...don't?" she replied, truthfully. Apart from the odd braid, the vast majority of Elves just left their hair to its own devices. A haircut once a decade tended to keep it neat. "We Elves have never really...gone in for hairstyles like yours."

"Nonsense!" Míma rebutted, combing out Tauriel's hair, looping it over her arm to stop it dragging over the ground. "When I was at the Iron Hills I saw a group of Elves with the wildest hair I'd ever seen. Great, thick queues like rat's tails. Horrible, they were! No offense, of course, ma'am."

"None taken," Tauriel replied, nonplussed. Whatever Míma thought she'd seen, they certainly weren't Elves.

"Well, don't you worry, m'lady," Míma replied as she gathered Tauriel's hair into a single queue and pulled a shiny pair of golden scissors from her pocket. "I ain't the Queen Under The Mountain's hairdresser for nothing. When I'm done with you, you'll make the Arkenstone look like a bauble."

Several hours later, Tauriel emerged from her room, and a king's ransom of precious stones glistened in the light from the burning sconces that lined the walls. The dress fit perfectly, despite the fact that she had almost certainly never even set eyes on the tailor; yet more testament to the Dwarves' skill as artisans. She gingerly reached up to touch her hair, breathing a sigh of relief when it didn't collapse in her hand. Míma had given her a coiffure which was subtle and understated by Dwarven standards, but positively outrageous by Elven ones; she had braided the majority of her hair into a single, intricate ridge which ran from the front of her head, producing something of a quiff, all the way to the back and down between her shoulder blades, where it untangled into gentle curls that reached the small of her back. Tauriel confessed she was taken with it, but it had taken some pleading to convince Míma not to put jewellery in it. Even then, she'd twice caught her trying to slip a bangle into her braid. In contrast to her assertions, the Dwarf was far from average.

Tauriel's first few steps were oddly wobbly. After a lifetime of the same hairstyle, her feet had become accustomed to a very particular weight and balance. Clambering through the treetops of Mirkwood was impossible unless you knew precisely where all of you was. Having accustomed to her new gait by the end of the corridor, Tauriel was thankful that the dress touched the ground; Dáin, perhaps typically, had neglected to also provide matching shoes, forcing Tauriel to wear her riding-boots.

She emerged onto a balcony from where she could see Erebor in its entirety, a pulsing, shouting, writhing organism of a million moving parts. In the main concourse, just within the gates, merchants haggled, bartered and sold before setting out on journeys to the Blue Mountains, cheek by jowl with hot food sellers. Deeper into the mountain, the sound of hundreds of chisels clinking on rock and hundreds of hammers clanging on anvils created a symphony of artistry; the sound of an entire population bent upon a single imperative. Far below her, she made out Dáin's red robe. The King was walking side-by-side with Dwalin and seemed to be chatting amiably with subjects who passed by. The brotherhood of Dwarves had never failed to astonish Tauriel; coming from a land where the differences between haves and have-nots were stark and eternal, the real camaraderie between the highest- and lowest-born Dwarves felt novel, even subversive.

She descended the steps leading from the balcony and joined the throng of Dwarves hawking wares. Tauriel was keenly aware of every head which turned after her, every conversation which halted mid-sentence as she passed. She was unsure if it was due to her being an Elf or, after Míma's earlier reaction, what she was wearing, but she had a sneaking suspicion it was both.

"Lady Tauriel!" A very elderly Dwarf, his beard snow-white and almost to his feet, addressed her. Tauriel blushed. It still felt strange to be addressed as such, and most likely always would. "So nice to see you again," he said, bowing slowly. Tauriel returned the gesture with a nod and continued on her way, crowds parting where she walked, some with smiles, and others with stares. At length she reached the staircase down to the Great Hall of Thrór where Dáin and Dwalin oversaw preparations for the feast, due to begin in a few hours.

As she descended the stairs, she saw them both stand straight before a tiny approaching woman, flanked by two guardsmen. Tauriel's heart clenched in her chest. She couldn't hear their exchange over the cacophony of merchants and hammers, but she could guess. The trio, and the guardsmen, descended another staircase even deeper into the mountain. Tauriel knew where they were going.

Unable to stop herself, she followed at a discreet distance. Even in her ornate dress, she was too practiced at moving stealthily for any of the party to notice her just a few yards behind them. The staircase wound deeper and deeper down, until it finally reached a vast underground vault lined with statues, kneeling and arms outstretched as if they were holding up the very mountain. Dáin, Dwalin and their companion went on ahead while the guardsmen halted outside the entrance. Tauriel tried to nonchalantly breeze past them but, with a whirlwind of metal, found their weapons at her throat. Through the doorway, just yards away, the three turned around. Dáin and Dwalin looked alternately ashamed and apologetic, while their companion wore a look even sharper than the spear-points that grazed Tauriel's throat. An elderly Dwarven woman, dressed in mourning black, exuding bitterness and hatred.

"Lady Dís," Tauriel pleaded. "Please."

Dís stepped forward until her face was just inches from her guards' outstretched spears. "Begone," she snarled, before turning on her heels and pushing past Dwalin and Dáin. The King Under The Mountain slunk off after her without another word to Tauriel, leaving her and Dwalin separated by spears and silence.

"You look lovely," he said sincerely, before turning to follow Dáin. Tauriel stepped backwards, pressing her hand to her throat where the spears had pricked her as the guards withdrew their weapons as smoothly as mechanical toys. As the footsteps from the other side of the doorway faded, she made her long and lonely way back up the stairs.


	2. Dwarven Appetites

Tauriel sat cross-legged on her bed, riding-boots thrown across the room, staring at the fire burning in the grate opposite. She had come straight back after her unpleasant encounter in the Vaults, stopping for nothing, not even the calls of admiration from common Dwarves going about their business. Here, with room in her head to finally think, Tauriel chided herself for ignoring them. How much she must seem to them, now, like just another haughty Elf.

The logs in the fireplace had burned down almost to their embers. Tauriel knew that here, fresh ones were only ever a call away, so unlike life in Mirkwood. Privileged as her position may be as the Elvenking's emissary to the east, there she would never be anything more than Silvan; second-class. The youngest, lowliest Sindar need never bow their head to her, regardless of the services she had rendered to the Woodland Realm. Refusing to emulate them, she stood and stirred the logs with a poker, eking a few more minutes of warmth out of them.

In the dull glow of the dying fire, Tauriel saw again the hate-filled face of Dís scowling at her from the charred, blackened coals. It was a disappointment that she had had to learn to live with. Dwalin may well have been right when he said she was the most universally-respected Elf amongst the Dwarven nations for an Age, but, selfishly, Tauriel would give it all up for the empathy of one who felt the same pain she did.

Three heavy thumps at the door broke Tauriel's concentration. "What?" she called out, annoyed.

"The feast, m'lady Tauriel," came the muffled reply. "It's starting."

Tauriel swore in Sindarin. How long had she barricaded herself in her rooms, stewing and seething? "I'm coming," she called as she picked up her riding-boots and hurriedly pulled them on, having to pull her dress up almost over her head to get them up to her thigh. "Hold on," she mumbled through a mouthful of fabric, having to hold the skirt up with her teeth as she fasted the dozen or so buckles on each boot. In record time, she fitted both boots and opened the door, where a red-jerkined adjutant was waiting impatiently.

"The invitation clearly stated, five o'clock sharp," he sneered with an irritating, nasal voice.

"Terribly sorry," Tauriel replied with a practiced smile. "I must have lost track of time."

"Very good, madam," the Dwarf replied with palpable disdain. Bureaucrats, it seemed, were the same everywhere. "If you'd care to follow me..."

The adjutant led her at glacial pace down the labyrinth of stairs and catwalks down to the Great Hall of Thrór, where she emerged into a scene of unparallelled grandeur. Two tables ran the length of the hall, each of them burdened with every possible kind of delicacy imaginable. Roast chickens were doled out as liberally as bread rolls, with whole suckling pigs and calves resting on the tables at regular intervals, so that any could reach over and grab a handful of meat right off the bone. Piles of fresh vegetables, clear glass bowls of live fish and crustaceans, and barrels of beer lined the walls like sentries, but the main attraction was a huge whole ox roasting over the great fire-pit in the centre of the room, dressed up in "scales" of pig skin to resemble Smaug. Tauriel noted, with some distaste, that the iron fence around the fire-pit closely resembled the former skyline of Esgaroth.

Unlike earlier, her presence and finery barely warranted a mention here. Not only was every Dwarf present tensed like a greyhound in the slips, waiting for the King to arrive so they could begin their glut, but Tauriel's dress was actually one of the less ostentatious outfits on display. The great and good of Erebor had turned out in their very finest, and for Dwarves, that meant a hundred pounds or more of fur, ermine, gold, jewels, and silk from the Red Mountains - a luxury the Dwarves counted almost as expensive as mithril. The hundred fires in the high-ceilinged chamber reflected from a thousand different polished surfaces, creating a dazzling light show to rival any meteor shower.

"Tauriel of the Woodland Realm," a herald boomed as she reached the head table at the end of the room, barely audible above the riotous noise of chatter.

"Tauriel? Tauriel! Bless my beard!" Slurred a familiar voice. Bofur pulled himself up onto the table, kicking a mug of beer over and barely keeping his balance. "Greetingsh," he proclaimed with a hiccup, "to our pointy-eared friend!" Bofur bowed deeply and immediately plummeted to the floor, eliciting a roar of laughter from some nearby Dwarves.

"Bofur!" Tauriel called out as she rushed to his side and helped him sit up. "Are you alright?"

Bofur licked his lips and looked around, as though remembering where he was. "Why wouldn't I be?" he asked, the stench of his breath making Tauriel wince. She hadn't seen Bofur in many years, as he had spent the majority of his time since Erebor was re-taken - and the majority of his share of the treasure - living like a king from place to place, and usually drinking them dry of wine while he was at it. Eventually, though, even his great fortune had run out, and he'd found himself back at Erebor eking out a living, always willing to tell the tale of his heroism in the Battle of Five Armies to impressionable tourists for the price of a drink.

"Why, indeed," Tauriel replied diplomatically, helping Bofur to his feet. With a pat of his widening belly and a scratch of his huge, ruby-red nose, he shuffled back to his seat, going under the table this time.

"Just be thankful he's still got his clothes on," came a soft voice from the end of the table. "He was already naked by this time last year." Tauriel blinked twice; it took her a moment to recognise Bifur, his hair and beard ornately arranged into a very refined, attractive style. He still bore the scar of the axe which had pierced his head, but it gave his aging face a touch of character.

"Bifur," she greeted him, crossing to the table and taking his hands as he stood. "You look wonderful."

"That's high praise comin' from you, sweetheart," he replied with a wink. Tauriel laughed, flattered. Of all the members of Thorin's Company, Bifur was the Dwarf she knew the least; his recovery from the injury which had left him wild-tempered and unable to speak the Common Tongue had been long and slow, and he had spent much of it in isolation. But she had heard much of his kindness and charm, and was pleased to see she had not been misled.

"I'm surprised Bombur isn't here already," she said, looking back to the door to watch more Dwarves flooding in in a glimmering wave of gold and silver.

"He's probably stopped for a snack!" Bofur interjected loudly, slipping down his chair as he laughed hysterically at his own joke.

"Ah, they'll still be getting him down the stairs by now," Bifur explained. "'Tis a logistical nightmare, getting him anywhere these days. When he came back from his latest journey, we had to knock a hole in the wall just to get him into his room." Tauriel's eyes widened in shock. Bombur was always of a prodigious girth, but all the recent news she'd heard of his size she had put down to tall tales or cruel jokes. "Tell the truth, Bombur's the easier of the two to organise," he said, nodding his head towards Bofur, who was struggling to remember how sitting down worked. Bifur excused himself to deal with his brother's drunken misbehaviour, and Tauriel moved to the other end of the table where Nori and Dori sat bickering.

"For the last time, Nori, no! You shan't see another coin from me for one of your fly-by-night wheezes!"

"Oh, come on, brother," Nori wheedled. "When 'av I ever purposefully misled you?"

"Oh, let me think," Dori said, soft and threatening, turning in his chair to face his brother. "There were the dragon eggs, which had everyone so excited until they hatched tortoises? Or when you tried flogging those old bones as Durin's fingers? You might have actually got somewhere with that, if you'd not had the bright idea to sell them by the dozen!"

"Alright, those were rare failures in my otherwise _hexemplary_ portfolio," Nori replied. "But this is the real deal, I'm telling you! My man in Bree swears on his eyes that this is your actual sword of your actual King Azaghâl, what stabbed Glaurung! Forged in Nogrod itself, you can still see the dragon blood on it!"

"Your man in Bree, hm?" Dori asked, suspiciously. "Who might that be?" Nori cleared his throat, swirling wine around in his cup.

"Blind Pete," he mumbled, taking a quick swig.

"Oh, get away!" Dori spat, shaking his head in disgust. "And you wonder why your gold went quicker than kingsfoil through a pig. You're a bloody-Miss Tauriel!" Dori finally noticed the Elf standing before them, somewhat to her disappointment; she was rather enjoying finally witnessing one of the brothers' legendary arguments. The profligate Nori and the miserly Dori; had they not been born of the same mother, they'd have nothing to do with one another.

"Dori, Nori," Tauriel greeted the brothers, each of them taking a hand and kissing it courteously. "So nice to see you both again."

"The honour, Miss Tauriel, is all ours," Dori replied, bowing low. "Always a pleasure to have our friends from the Woodland Realm in Erebor. Move, move!" He hissed to Nori, hurrying him out of the way so that Tauriel could get behind him and into her chair, just two seats away from Dáin's at the middle of the table. He chuckled obsequiously as he pushed Tauriel's seat in behind her, as attentive as a waiter.

"I've been meaning to return," she said as Dori unfolded her napkin for her and laid it over her lap, "but Lord Thranduil's requirements of me encompass more than just Erebor."

"I understand perfectly," Dori said as he filled her cup with wine. "Why, our own brother Ori would be here if he could, but he's doing terribly important work over in Moria." Tauriel turned to regard Dori, surprised.

"You've heard from him?" She asked. "I thought nothing had been heard from Balin's expedition since it set out twenty years ago." Dori's wide smile lowered ever so slightly, the warmth of his eyes dying a little.

"Not as such, no," he admitted, forcing his smile to widen to an uncomfortable intensity. "But, I'm sure he has a very good reason not for writing home. Very good reason," he repeated to himself, straightening Tauriel's cutlery nervously. "You know Ori," he spoke up with a blustering laugh, "the boy'd forget his head if he didn't have someone...someone to…" Dori clenched his fists, his fingers trembling too much to continue. He cleared his throat and said in a breaking voice, "I'm sure he sends his regards," before returning to his seat, staring dead ahead, as though the feast were happening in another world. Tauriel looked to Nori, whose cheeky smile had also vanished, wearing a careworn expression which seemed utterly alien on the irrepressible, incorrigible Dwarf. He said nothing, just shaking his head slowly. It said more than enough.

The blare of trumpets caught everyone's attention, and all stood as one to greet the King's retinue. "Dáin the second, of clan Ironfoot, King Under The Mountain!" the herald bellowed, eliciting a roar of support and acclaim from all present. As extravagant as his outfit from earlier in the day had been, it appeared they were just his normal, workaday clothes; he wore plate armour of gold with a mithril inlay depicting the crest of the Lonely Mountain, with the Arkenstone represented by a diamond the size of a peach, shooting rays of coruscating opal out towards the edges. Over that, he wore a fur gown in gold and purple so long he needed two servants to carry its train, and, of course, the crown of Thrór upon his head. He waved benevolently to his subjects as he passed, clasping hands with some, bestowing violent embraces on others. For all his faults, Tauriel thought - and she was privy to more than a few of them - Dáin was a popular king, who deserved his popularity. He had the most valuable and elusive trait of all in a ruler; the common touch.

"Dwalin, son of Fundin, Captain of the Guard!" The herald continued. Dwalin entered to a round of applause and cheers of greeting. He wore his dress uniform of polished silver armour and a red, ermine-lined cape. Unlike Dáin's glad-handing, he acknowledged his greeting with curt nods to Dwarves he recognised. First and foremost, he was, after all, Tauriel thought, a soldier. As Dáin and Dwalin approached the head table, they stopped and stood on opposite sides, forming an honour guard. Tauriel's intrigue was piqued. Who could possibly be so respected that the King Under The Mountain would-

Tauriel felt her heart in her throat. _Of course,_ she thought. _The only person it could be._ The trumpets sounded once again, and a familiar, black-clad lady Dwarf appeared in the doorway. The hooting and hollering stopped, and every Dwarf present bowed their heads in respectful silence. "The Lady Dís," the herald announced, and Dís began her slow walk between the tables, as the Dwarves began to sing.

 _Far over the Misty Mountains cold,_

 _To dungeons deep and caverns old,_

 _We must away, ere break of day_

 _To find our long-forgotten gold._

As she drew closer and closer, Tauriel could feel Dís' eyes burning a hole through her. She may have no say in who the King Under The Mountain invited to his feast, but Tauriel had no doubt she would have made her objections painfully clear. In fact, she subtly suspected that this entrance, upstaging the King himself, was a compromise, a show of one-upmanship aimed at her, and wondered if her appearance in the vault earlier in the day hadn't given her just the leverage she'd needed to force the matter. But as painful as the old Dwarf's hatred was to take, for all the grief it had brought Tauriel for sixty years, she still could not bring herself to hate her. Dís had lost everything at Five Armies; both of her sons, Kíli and Fíli, and her last living brother, Thorin himself. With no Orcs left alive to blame, and as the last of her family, her rage had turned to Tauriel - the Elf-witch who had enchanted her son to his death. As the closest kin of the deceased, she had decreed that Tauriel would never be permitted to enter the Vaults of Durin; she would never kneel at Kíli's tomb. It was a right the Dwarves held sacrosanct; so much so that not even Dáin himself was permitted to overrule it. Tauriel had spent the last sixty years hoping against hope that eventually Dís would reverse her decision, but she had learned that if Dwarves were anything, they were stubborn. The River Running would flow backwards and drown the Woodland Realm before a Dwarf with a grievance would change their mind over it.

 _The pines were roaring on the height,_

 _The winds were moaning in the night._

 _The fire was red, it flaming spread;_

 _The trees like torches blazed with light_.

The Dwarves' haunting song continued, filling the cavernous space with harmonies, until at last Dís reached Dáin and Dwalin, who bowed and showed her to her seat at Dáin's right hand. Tauriel was privately thankful for Dáin's outrageously opulent throne; it meant Dís' murderous stare would have to find its way through half a ton of gold before it reached her. As the guests of honour took their seats, Dáin called for the feast to begin. Within seconds, the meticulous table-settings were destroyed as over a hundred Dwarves clambered over each other to grab fistfuls of meat, elbowing each other out of the way to fill their jugs with beer, trampling others underfoot to get a rib from the roasting ox. Even at the head table, with their plates being filled and brought to them by servers, the Dwarves made pigs of themselves, their heads almost touching the table as they shovelled food into their mouths. Tauriel may have acquired a taste for Dwarven food, but certainly not their appetite for it.

"Sorry about earlier," Dwalin mumbled discreetly during a lull in the orgy, "it must have been difficult for you. But, I did warn you."

Tauriel sighed as she worried meat from a rib-bone. "I know," she admitted. "But...there was nothing I could do. It was as if I had no control of myself. I'm sorry."

"You've nothing to apologise for," Dwalin replied. "Dwarves are a proud race. Sometimes...too proud."

Tauriel smiled sadly. She made to speak, but was cut off by another blast of trumpets. "What's going-oh, my word."

A pair of stout Dwarves, bent double, appeared at the door, carrying the front portion of a massive bier. From the darkness of the entrance, eventually the massively corpulent frame of Bombur came into light, supported on his litter by six Dwarves. The huge fish-bowls became tempests of activity with fish thrashing around as he passed, as though desperate to escape their inevitable fate. Dwarves on both sides of the room chanted his name in adulation and he waved huge, sausage-sized fingers to his fans. Various cuts of meat were thrown up towards him like flowers onto a King's funeral train; Bombur, showing deceptive quickness, plucked some out of the air and thrust them immediately into his maw, while a seventh and eighth Dwarf scurried madly in front of the litter-bearers with brooms, sweeping slops of food which had missed their mark out of the way of their feet. Tauriel's stomach lurched, not just at the sight of the colossus Bombur had become, but also of the thought of any one of the litter-bearers losing their footing and sending him barrelling down into the tables below. There'd be deaths.

Eventually Bombur's litter reached the main table, and he was eased out of his seat by his servants with long paddles. Bifur and Bofur both stood to greet him, and helped him into his specially reinforced seat at their end of the table. "They were true," Tauriel whispered. "All the stories, they were true."

"'E's just come back from his latest 'gastronomic tour'," Nori said to her. "He spent six months in the Shire. Made a good mate while he was out there, Skinny Bolger. Well, they don't call him that anymore, like."

As a pile of food which reached above his head was placed before Bombur's grasping hands, Tauriel slowly pushed her plate away. Dwalin turned to her with a wry smile.

"Not hungry?" he said. Tauriel rolled her eyes and took a gulp of wine as Dwalin brayed with laughter.

* * *

The feast continued for a good hour or so, until even the bottomless Bombur seemed sated. Dwarves lolled in their seats, surrounded by bones, spills, stains and other detritus which servers worked hurriedly to clear away. In the fire-pit, the ox had been pillaged down to its bones, which blackened slowly in the flames. Even Tauriel had to admit that the food had been exquisite. Dáin clapped his hands twice, rousing his guests to attention.

"Thank you all," he began his speech, "for making this year's Thorin's Day feast the best yet!" A roar of approval greeted his words. "But it's not over yet!" He continued as the shouts died down. "It wouldn't be a feast without entertainment! Bring 'em out!"

"Ah, the band!" Dwalin said effusively to Tauriel as cheers and whoops begun anew. "Now, this is proper Dwarven entertainment." But his wide grin faded slowly as a troop of oddly-garbed strangers emerged from a side door and filed in front of the head table. "Where's their instruments?" He asked, casting his eyes askance at Dáin, who watched them line up with a smile.

"Hail, Dáin Ironfoot!" One called out, ostensibly their leader. He was dressed, as were his comrades, in decidedly strange-looking fake armour and over-sized helmets, also fake. "The Merry Players of Ered Luin salute you!" The players clasped fists to their chests and bowed deeply. Dáin accepted the bow with a raise of his hand. "It is our honour to perform for you and your household on this most auspicious of days!"

"Perform?" Dwalin growled. "Actors?!" He blurted, his gaze switching between Dáin's benevolent smile and Tauriel's smug, satisfied smirk.

"Looks like we're in for some proper Elven entertainment," Tauriel leaned over and whispered to him with relish. Dwalin almost shuddered with indignation.

"This is an original piece which has been commissioned especially for the occasion," the lead player continued. "It is titled, Erebor Regained!"

A mighty roar of joy went up from all Dwarves present, and Tauriel. Dwalin, however, shook his head and seethed. The players took their places at either side of the room as their leader, now seemingly the narrator, turned and took centre stage. Dwalin shot the joyful Tauriel a cynical look, but settled in to watch the entertainment.

 _Beneath the Lonely Mountain tall,_

 _A dragon sat in Dwarven halls._

Three players stepped forward, stood abreast, the ones at each side carrying a large painted paper wing and the third affixing a crude model of a dragon's head to the top of his helmet. The three ran around in a circle, flapping their wings and roaring before the centre player picked up a candle from the head table and blew a flame from his mouth, to impressed calls.

 _He brooded under Erebor_

 _Until King Thorin said - no more!_

From the other side, another player stepped forward and removed his helmet to raucous cheers, holding a wooden sword high. This, then, was their Thorin. "Looks nothing like him," Dwalin muttered.

 _With grit and steel, with cry and shout,_

 _They cast the vicious dragon out._

 _The dragon tried to burn Lake-Town,_

 _But mighty Thorin struck him down._

"No, he bloody didn't!" Dwalin complained as the actor playing Thorin ran his sword between the players of Smaug, making them split apart and fall to the ground in pretend death throes.

"Every good story needs to take a little artistic license," Tauriel retorted, clapping along with everyone else.

"Taking the piss is what it is," Dwalin grumbled.

 _But Elvish greed is beyond compare;_

 _The Elvenking besieged him there!_

 _And with an avarice so bold,_

 _Demanded every ounce of gold!_

It was Tauriel's turn to frown as another player mounted stilts and wrapped a silver cloak around himself, tottering into centre stage and removing his helmet to unveil an absurdly long blonde wig, a vicious parody of Thranduil. The Dwarves laughed uproariously. "How's that for your artistic license?" Dwalin gloated.

 _But with a swift and mighty raid,_

 _Dáin Ironfoot came to his aid!_

 _Amid the bloody rough-and-tumble,_

 _The Elvenking, so proud, stood humbled._

One of the actors who had been Smaug now came into view, wearing a red wig and swinging a wooden warhammer to raucous cheers. He thrust the end of the hammer into Thranduil's midriff, sending him toppling backwards on his stilts.

 _Then, as the Elves turned tail and flew,_

 _Ten thousand Orcs hoved into view._

 _Alone against the vile horde,_

 _The Iron Dwarves brought axe and sword!_

"'Flew'? 'Alone'?" Tauriel's smile dropped. "We fought by your side against the Orcs," she said, turning to Dáin, who seemed to ignore her. "We lost five hundred warriors. My own cousin-" Dwalin laid a hand on her shoulder; not to reprimand her, but reassure.

"It's just a bunch of idiots who weren't even there telling a story," he said, also growing annoyed, "to another bunch of idiots who weren't even there."

 _While Dáin did battle down below,_

 _King Thorin sought his age-old foe._

Another of the Smaug actors removed his helmet and came on stage, his face and bald head pointed white. A chorus of booes rang out across the hall, and Azog found himself pelted with the few remaining scraps of food. Acting the part, he ranged from side to side, growling and swiping at the guests. Dwalin made a noise of disgust, finding the lampoonery of the most vicious foe he had ever faced, the murderer of his friend and king, in exceedingly poor taste.

 _But Thorin did not fight alone;_

 _He had help from flesh and bone!_

"Oh, no," Tauriel muttered as two more actors stepped from the sidelines. "Oh, no, no, no, tell me they're not going to." The two actors removed their helmets to reveal blonde and black hair respectively. Tauriel let out an involuntary groan of pain and Dwalin's lips clamped into a tight line, his chest swelling.

 _Mighty Fíli gave his all,_

 _But to the pale Orc's blade did fall._

Before them, an elaborately choreographed sword fight between Fíli and Azog was performed, eliciting cries and shouts from the enraptured audience. But with every slow swing of their wooden swords, Dwalin grew angrier and angrier until he could take no more. "No," he growled. "He didn't. Azog slaughtered him." He turned to Dáin, furious. "He slaughtered him like a pig. I saw it." If Dáin heard his Captain's words, he ignored them, instead applauding and booing when Fíli fell.

Dwalin was brought back to that day on Ravenhill, when he'd stood helpless far below as Fíli was dangled like a landed fish from the top of the tower and run through by Azog's stump-blade, like a fisherman gutting his catch. He remembered the way the young Dwarf had cried out pitifully as he was pierced, how his legs had kicked futilely and then gone still. How Azog had dropped him like refuse to the floor below, breaking his body on the ice. The heir to the throne killed before his eyes, and Dwalin could do nothing to save him.

 _His brother slain, brave Kíli fought,_

 _But all his efforts came to naught._

"I can't watch," Tauriel whispered as the fake Kíli strode forward, breathing heavily and averting her eyes down to the table. She screwed them shut but could not prevent the memory returning, as fresh as if it had just happened. The ache in her ribs, the cold air in her lungs. Opening her blurry eyes to see Bolg towering over Kíli's tiny frame, trying to get up and help him but powerless to do so. Her head spun where Bolg had hit her, her back splintered where he had thrown her against the stone ramparts. She strained every sinew but could not will her body to rise. With a cruel smile, he pierced Kíli's heart with the spike of his club, and Tauriel felt her chest hollow out as he cried out in agony before going limp. "No!" She called out, her voice lost in the tumult of Dwarves all saying the same thing as Kíli's actor fell dramatically to the floor.

 _With both his sister-sons now lost,_

 _Thorin slew his foe - but at great cost._

Thorin stepped forwards and had another sword fight with Azog, which finished with them both slaying the other, to a chorus of moans and light applause.

"This is disgraceful," Dwalin muttered, his good humour evaporating. "Disgraceful."

 _But though their spirits may have flown,_

 _Upon his back, Dáin brought them home._

The Dáin actor dropped his weapon and lifted all three actors - no mean feat, even for a Dwarf - onto his back, slowly marching from one side of the stage to the other. Dwalin's rage swelled like an over-fed furnace as, from the corner of his eye, he saw Dáin smiling warmly at this arrant fiction.

"We carried Thorin's body down from Ravenhill," he hissed. "Balin and me. Not you."

"Dwalin," Dáin whispered, still watching the performance. "It's just a play." A bright eye swivelled to meet Dwalin's. "They'll go home tonight," he muttered, nodding to the guests who sat enraptured, "fed, happy, and adoring Thorin and their King. If you want to win a few hearts," he said, settling back into his throne, "you have to tell a few lies." Dwalin's fury melted away, replaced with cold horror. He looked around at his kinsmen; Bofur the drunk, Bombur the glutton, Nori the thief. Dáin the liar.

"Is this what's become of us?" He said to himself. "Is there no honour left?"

Beside him, Tauriel got to her feet and pushed her way past Nori and Dori, storming towards the door. Dwalin stood and watched her, a growing sickness in his stomach. "It appears we've offended our guest, Sire," he said, his words dripping with disgust.

Dáin made a small grunt of acknowledgement. "A shame," he said. "But I'm sure she'll get over it. This is a night for Dwarves," he said, raising his cup to the actors who took their bow before him. "Not Elves."

As Tauriel cleared the Great Hall, the chill of subterranean night hit her like a gutpunch. She finally released the breath she had been holding since she rose in a short sob, a cry of grief and fury. After being yet again denied access to the Vaults of Durin and subjected to Dís' grandiose entrance, being forced to relive the worst moment of her life was just too much. Clutching her hands to her churning stomach, she walked slowly back to her room.

* * *

Dwalin had not stayed long after the actors had taken their final bow, making his excuses to Dís and the former members of the Company and leaving, or at least attempting to. A number of drunken Dwarves buttonholed him and attempted to cajole him into telling a few tales from the days of the Quest, which required skill and the liberal application of threats of violence to extricate himself from. After half a dozen or so of these annoyances, Dwalin swallowed his pride, pulled rank and ordered some guardsmen to clear him a path out.

The series of staircases to Tauriel's room were harder than they used to be. A few paces from her door, Dwalin paused to catch his breath. He'd never give her the satisfaction, but Tauriel wasn't wrong - he was getting old. Breath caught, he knocked softly on her door. "It's me," he said, hoping she was there and hadn't immediately saddled her horse and left for Mirkwood. If she had, he thought, she'd be well within her rights.

There was no response. The door, however, was unlocked. Gingerly, Dwalin pushed it open. A shard of vivid orange light shone through the crack in the door, and Dwalin stepped through. He immediately averted his gaze, made sure no-one was behind him, and closed the door.

"I…" he began, stumbling over his words. "I hope you know what you're doing there."

Tauriel stood in front of the fireplace with her back to Dwalin, watching a massive fire blaze and burn before her, nude but for her riding-boots. In her outstretched arms lay her dress, holding it like a sleeping child.

"I carried him," she said, her voice cracked and breathy. "Down from Ravenhill."

Tauriel remembered every step of the journey. After Thranduil had left her to make her peace, she had scooped Kíli up in her arms - he seemed to barely weigh a thing - and made her slow, careful way down to the gates of Erebor, where she had met Dwalin and Balin bearing Thorin's body, and Gandalf bearing Fíli's.

"He was warm," she said, with a sad laugh. "Still warm. Even in so much snow. So much cold," she whispered, looking down at her dress.

Dwalin, still staring at the floor, sighed sadly. "I'm sorry, Tauriel," he said softly. "What happened tonight was inexcusable. Rest assured I will bring it up with Dáin...when he's not hungover," he finished, bitterly.

"Do you know why I didn't want to wear this dress?" Tauriel asked, seeming to have not heard a word Dwalin had said. Dwalin blinked, taken aback.

"No," he replied. "Why?"

"Because it's the dress of a princess," she said. "I hate princesses. You couldn't understand it," she continued, sniffling. "A Dwarf can find a seam of gold and get rich, open up a new mine and become a Lord. Fight bravely and become a famous general. Elves...Elves have no such concept of things. You are what you are born, until the day you die, and for us that can be a very long time." Dwalin shook his head sympathetically. "I'm Silvan. A border guard. A nothing, a nobody, in the grand scheme of things. But…" she stroked the jewels which glistened in the firelight. "I would have been his princess," she whispered, a single tear running down her cheek. "I would have been a princess of Erebor, and these jewels, this dress, this would have been my right. But I'm not...as they're not. So I can't take them."

Dwalin nodded slowly. He understood. "It's a gift," he said. "That means it's yours to do with as you please."

Tauriel breathed deeply, holding the dress out over the fire. As the gold shone brilliantly in the light, she remembered the reaction it had elicited, and the kindness she had been shown.

The dress fell at Dwalin's feet. He cast a wary eye up, where Tauriel was wrapping her bathing gown around her body. He slowly bent to pick it up, folding it neatly. "Give it to Míma," Tauriel said. "Nîn's hairstylist. She deserves it more than me." Dwalin nodded, tucking the dress under his arm.

"I imagine you'll not be staying, then?" He asked. Tauriel shook her head.

"I'm off tomorrow anyway," she explained, "to Dale. It's their Founding Day celebration. And then I'm going back to Mirkwood. After that...I go where Lord Thranduil needs me."

"He'll always need you here," Dwalin said. "He just doesn't know it." Tauriel smiled.

"Thank you, Dwalin," she said, embracing him tightly. He wrapped strong arms around her waist, bade her goodnight, and left her to sleep beneath the mountain one last time.


	3. Far From The Tree

Erebor was oddly silent when Tauriel woke, but for the ever-present rumble of furnaces in the deep dungeons. The hubbub of Dwarven life, usually audible even from her rooms on the highest level, seemed to have ebbed away, as though the population had fled once more. Wasting no time on sentiment, Tauriel dressed and left her room. The early morning sun cast thin rays through the cold mountain interior; the fires that usually lined the walls and floors had gone out, and not been re-lit.

As she descended the stairs to ground level, she became gradually aware of a soft, wheezing noise all around her, as though one of the pairs of great bellows in the metalworks had sprung a leak. It wasn't until she reached the main concourse that she saw Dwarves lying on every surface, in various states of undress, comatose. Puddles of beer gathered on the stones, and torrents of food - and what had once been food - poured down stairs like waterfalls and reached yards up every wall. Tauriel resolved that she had to return to Erebor, if only so that her last memory of the place wouldn't be that sight, and smell.

"Leaving us, Miss Tauriel?" A guardsman asked her at the gate, seemingly oblivious to the piles of living wreckage snoring and stinking just yards from him. "So soon?"

"I'm afraid so," Tauriel replied with forced brightness. "Affairs of state." The guard gestured for another to fetch Aelfar from the stables.

"Enjoy the feast last night?" The guard asked with a hint of sarcasm. Tauriel paused, unable to give a truthful answer. Her memories of the feast were taken over completely by the horror and grief she had felt at being forced to watch a crass reenactment of Kili's death. The guard, however, could not have known this, and chuckled smugly. "Probably not what you're used to in the Woodland Realm!"

"No," Tauriel said, finally. "No, not at all." The guard's chest swelled with pride.

"No-one parties like a Dwarf!" He said. Tauriel managed a thin smile as Aelfar was led to her, saddled and ready. The guard called for the main gates to be opened and bade his farewell. She walked Aelfar to the doors of the gatehouse and pulled up her hood as a wave of cold air washed over her. It was a poor day to be riding, with bitter winds blasting the plains. Thankfully, the new road between Erebor and Dale made travel between the two simple, and within a few minutes Aelfar's swift hooves had brought her to the doors of Dale.

A guard poked his head out of a window above the gates. "Who goes there?" He shouted, cheeks red with the cold.

"Tauriel of the Woodland Realm," Tauriel called back to him, pulling down her hood and squinting as the wind lashed at her eyes. The guard nodded and pulled his head back inside.

"It's the elf-woman!" She heard him bellow. "Open the gates!"

There were no enticing scents to greet Tauriel here. Instead of industry and food, the overwhelming smell of Dale was fish and manure. Dale was a rich city, but its wealth was concentrated in the hands of a select few, while the common folk lived the same lives and worked the same jobs as their forefathers had done in Esgaroth. However, in contrast to the cruel and rapacious reigns of the various Masters of Lake-town, the kings of Bard's line had brought stability, spending thousands on infrastructure to the point where it was a local point of pride that, even in the harshest winters, not one citizen of Dale wanted for food or shelter.

In the square immediately before the city gates, Dale fish-market was in full voice, with merchants in thick woolen hats and gloves barking at their tops of their voices in the unmistakable, sing-song Dale accent. The new road to Esgaroth had made Dale the fish market of all the North, and brought never-before-seen wealth to Lake-town and the few who still resided there. Tauriel was less recognised here than she was in Erebor, but those that did recognise her paid her the same level of courtesy as the Dwarves. Elderly men and women, doubtless just youths or even younger at the time of the Battle of Five Armies, reached their hands up to her in greeting and proffered coins, flowers, even the rings from their own fingers as a much-belated thank-you. She graciously declined all offers, and made her way up the steepening road which circled the city and wound upwards towards the palace at the peak of the hill upon which Dale was built.

As she passed the rows of houses, humble yet beautifully-maintained, with banners and streamers hanging between their roofs, she could not help but think how unrecognisable the city was from the ruin she had entered sixty years ago. Then, Men and Elves fought and died in snow-covered streets, amid long-abandoned buildings, giving their all to beat back a tide of frantic, murderous Orcs. The battle in Dale was won, but at the cost of a river of Elvish blood. Their sacrifice, Tauriel mused as she came within sight of the palace gates, had not been in vain; life had returned to Dale, and the Elves of the Woodland Realm realised they had friends who would die for them.

She showed her credentials to the guard at the gate and was admitted into the central courtyard. She dismounted Aelfar, saying goodbye to him for the second time in as many days, and was led by a steward inside the palace. In stark contrast to the decidedly garish appearance of Erebor's most opulent halls, the royal palace of Dale was almost austere; instead of stone, it was decorated throughout with dark, varnished wood which glowed warmly in the sun, even in winter. Tapestries and paintings hung throughout, many of them recovered from the bottom of the Long Lake following Smaug's attack on Esgaroth and painstakingly restored. In the vestibule, high-ranking citizens of Dale inclined their heads to Tauriel as she passed; where Thranduil's emissary went, they had learned, the opportunity to make money almost always followed. Following Five Armies, Thranduil had finally opened his vast stores of riches to the free market, not only selling highly-prized Woodland Realm wine, but collecting rarities, luxuries and _objets d'art_ from all over Middle-Earth, allowing enterprising businessmen to make a killing.

Tauriel was announced into the throne room, turning few heads in the busy space. Discussion and debate raged between advisors and ministers, various royal hangers-on gossiped, and at the head of the room King Brand was talked through a particularly complex piece of legislation by one of his magistrates. He greatly resembled his grandfather, the legendary Bard, in his later years; a great strength and energy gone to seed somewhat, but still able to keep up with men half his age. As he raised his head at Tauriel's approach, she saw within his lined face the same eyes as his grandfather; sharp, keen, and fiercely intelligent. The way his cheeks crinkled when he smiled; that had been Bard's trademark too.

"Tauriel," he said, brushing his advisor away with a swipe of his hand. "You're early."

"I'm always eager to get to Dale, your Majesty," Tauriel replied smoothly, taking a knee before the king and bowing her head. Brand scoffed.

"I went to Dain's Thorin's Day feast once," he said. "Once," he repeated, casting Tauriel a knowing look. "I got out of there as soon as I could, too," he quipped, offering his hand. Tauriel took it, retaking her feet. "The food here might not be as good, but I can guarantee it'll all be on plates."

A ripple of laughs rose around Brand, only one of them real. In the curl at the corner of his mouth, Tauriel knew he could tell.

"I'm looking forward to it, Majesty," she replied, releasing his hand. There was no way, Tauriel thought to herself, that tonight's entertainment could be worse than last night's.

"We've a little time before the dedication," Brand said. "Would you walk with me?" He offered his arm courteously.

"I'd be delighted," Tauriel replied, taking his arm and exiting the throne room into a long corridor flanked on all sides by statues in various states of distress; more jetsam from the wreckage of Esgaroth.

"Tell me," Brand asked as the door closed behind them, dropping his practiced Gondorian accent and speaking in the harsh, heavy-syllabled Daleish which made him sound identical to his grandfather as well as look like him, "was the feast as horrible as I worried it would be?"

Tauriel laughed, clutching Brand's arm with both hands. "You've no idea," she said. "I've seen trolls eat with more manners."

Brand chuckled softly. "I'm surprised he invited you at all," he replied. "Thorin's Day is usually a Dwarves-only affair. Irony of ironies," he muttered, eliciting a cynical nod from Tauriel.

"They staged a play about the battle," she said as they passed a statue of Elendil missing both arms. "Apparently the Dwarves chased the Elves from the field and won it single-handed."

"Is that not what happened, then?" Brand asked.

"It's not how I remember it, no," Tauriel replied sarcastically as Brand laughed louder. They walked in silence a few more steps as the following moments of the play, still fresh in Tauriel's memory, made her stomach clench again. "There was also…" she began, never finishing.

"Also what?" Brand asked.

"Nothing," Tauriel lied. "Just awful poetry."

"Tauriel," Brand said, his tone carrying a hint of compassionate coaxing which Tauriel was sure worked on women who weren't seven hundred years older than him. Nevertheless,she decided he deserved to know.

"They did a reenactment," she said. The fading of Brand's smile told her he already knew where she was going. "Of...Kili, and..." she trailed off, and Brand swore under his breath.

"Does he have no regard at all?" Brand muttered angrily. "I'm sorry," he sighed. "Dain's been acting strangely of late. He's always been a little paranoid and parochial, but recently…" He shook his head, as though the Dwarven King were a riddle he'd long been contemplating. "I think he's anxious to consolidate his rule."

"Consolidate against what?" Tauriel asked, growing angry herself. "He has no enemies, no rivals. He is uncontested as King Under The Mountain. Who could take his glory from him?"

"Time," Brand said with a sad smile, stopping and taking Tauriel's hands in his. "He's nearing the end of his life, he's the first King of Erebor in generations. He wants to leave a high bar for all his descendants to live up to, like Durin himself."

Tauriel considered Brand's response. "Or Bard," she retorted with a cheeky smile, continuing her walk. Brand staggered backwards in mock offence.

"It always comes back to him with you, doesn't it?" He asked, laughing at how easily she had punctured him.

"He was a great friend," Tauriel replied, "afterwards. I spent a lot of time in Dale during the rebuilding. I couldn't be in Erebor and I didn't want to be in Mirkwood, he...took me in."

"He counted you his dearest friend," Brand said. "I think it meant a lot to him that you were there at the end."

Tauriel swallowed hard, memories surfacing unbidden. "It was an honour," she said quietly.

"Knowing him was an honour," Brand agreed. "Following him, a curse." Tauriel smiled.

"Your father managed it well enough."

"That he did," Brand replied, proudly. The two friends turned into a large, unoccupied hall dominated by a massive artist's impression of the Battle of Five Armies over an unlit fireplace opposite long, wide stained-glass windows looking out over the majority of the city. "I must admit," Brand said, his deep voice echoing, "I wasn't expecting your visit to get me so...nostalgic."

Tauriel cast him a knowing look. "That's the way with Elves," she said. "We're the rememberers of the past. Men's link to history. Paper rots, stone weathers, but an Elf's mind is as clear as day until the day we die."

"I suppose it's only natural, too," Brand added, "given the events of the day." Tauriel nodded; in reminiscing she had almost forgotten her official business in Dale. A minister appeared in the doorway before them, coughing surreptitiously.

"I think that's me," Brand said apologetically. "I'll see you in an hour or so."

Tauriel kissed a large ruby ring on Brand's hand and the two parted with a smile. Alone again, she crossed to the only unlocked window and opened it wider, letting in a blast of freezing air and the unparalleled sight of Dale spreading out beneath her, and beyond it, the Lonely Mountain. Far from its screaming winds and impassable cliffs, the mountain looked serene, welcoming even. Tauriel knew well the deceptive peace of both the mountain, and the kingdom within it.

* * *

The common folk of Dale milled and waited in the palace's western courtyard, the only part of the complex open to the public. Normally this would be a marketplace for businessmen, a place where deals were struck, contracts agreed, and ventures undertaken. Today, however, it was heavily roped off, with a line of armed guards keeping the public out. In the middle of the courtyard, a huge sheet hid a monument some ten metres tall and at least half that across. Tauriel watched from a window as the commoners blew on their hands and stamped their feet to banish the cold. In the fire-warmed vestibule, some two dozen luminaries of Dale society and ambassadors from other realms were gathered.

"They must really want to be here," Tauriel remarked to an elderly, long-moustached man beside her.

"There's been tremendous excitement over it," the man, who Tauriel thought might be a judge, replied. "Brand wanted to do something special for Dale's sixtieth birthday, you see; there are public funds available for Founding Day revelries, of course, but he went ahead and paid for this out of his own pocket. Swore everyone involved to secrecy, so I hear. Wanted it to be a surprise. Never took him to have a flair for the dramatic," the judge observed drily. Tauriel smirked. Neither had she.

In time, she and the other VIPs were led outside, flanked by guards, to take positions in a semicircle in front of the monument. Cheers and boos mixed indiscriminately; the people of Dale's distrust of public figures, now practically racial memory after centuries of suffering at the hands of cruel Masters, was almost universal. That they had tolerated the presence of a King for so long, some said, was testament to the skill and leadership of Bard's line.

With the dignitaries in position, the trumpets played a bold fanfare and the boos petered out. "Stand and be present for his Majesty, King Brand!" A huge-necked, red-faced herald bellowed, so loud that Tauriel imagined there were fishermen in Esgaroth getting to their feet and expecting their King to walk through the door. Four armed guards walked out first, and then Brand in the full regalia of his office - a rust-red, fur-lined robe, a ceremonial sword almost as long as he was tall, and the Crown of Dale; unique amongst all the kingdoms of Middle-Earth, it was forged not of gold and silver, but iron. Thick and without filigree or gemwork, it was crested with six tall, sharp points, and looked - Tauriel thought with some guilt - more akin to Orcish craft. Set against Brand's long, grey hair and weathered face, it made him look like one of the ancient statues of the kings of Númenor that littered the plains of the South.

Behind him, in battle-armour, walked a young man with jet-black hair and a manner which was at once haughty and uncomfortable. Although she hadn't seen him since he was a child, Tauriel guessed this must be Bard - Brand's only son, recently come into his manhood and given the title of Crown Prince; heir to the throne of Dale. He stopped some metres short of his father, staring up at the tip of the covered monument and rocking on his heels, as of one possessed of an opinion which they absolutely must express.

Brand shared a few brief words with some of the dignitaries before parting them to stand just metres from the crowd. A hush fell over the people of Dale as Brand began to speak.

"I see a lot of old faces in this crowd," he said, to a light scattering of laughs. "You have me at a disadvantage. I was the first member of my family to be born in Dale in over two hundred years. The war we commemorate this day might as well be a story to me, for all I have are the tales my father and grandfather would tell me as a child. They are my link to this day, as I'm sure everyone here has theirs - mother, father, grandparents, maybe some of you were even there. And so," he said, moving to the side of the statue and gripping the sheet firmly, "it's my great honour to unveil my tribute to the kings who came before me."

With a hard tug, the sheet slid from the top of the monument in a single, glossy wave, exposing bright marble beneath which wowed the crowd with its lustre. A bowman stood on the right, leaning back heavily as he pulled his bowstring with both hands, loaded with an arrow almost twice as long as himself. In front of him, a boy stood holding the bow against his body, the arrow resting on his shoulder. The pair looked upwards and outwards, aiming north, towards Erebor.

A roar of approval erupted from the crowd. It was an image they knew well; the tale of how Bard and his son Bain had slain Smaug amid the ruins of Lake-town, with Bain offering his own body in place of Bard's shattered bow, had quickly passed into folklore. Quickly the onlookers began praising the artistry of the sculpture and its resemblance to its subjects. Brand allowed himself a satisfied smile. The older members of the crowd, especially, were particularly moved, with the sixty-year-old chant of "Bowman! Bowman!" being revived by rough, croaky voices, as though they were ready to fight the orcs all over again. Tauriel was breathtaken by the sheer depth of feeling surrounding her, not to mention how overwhelming the unveiling had been. It was all she could do to applaud as she stared at the marble Bard's furrowed brow, and his son's grim determination.

But as she looked askance to the other dignitaries, all she could see were looks of dismay and discomfort. Rictus smiles betrayed fearful eyes and weak-hearted applause. It confused her as to why loyal subjects of Dale should react so badly to their history being celebrated. Before she could think any longer on it, however, Brand spoke again.

"Make sure you're all looking west just after sunset!" He called out, to a whoop of celebration. Raising his hand to the crowd, Brand prepared to leave, but was caught by his son's hand on his shoulder.

"Father, if I may?" He asked, gesturing to the crowd. Brand regarded him with some surprise, but nodded and gestured for him to address the crowd. Tauriel raised an eyebrow. What could the Crown Prince have to add to his father's words?

"Loyal subjects," he began, immediately evaporating one or two smiles, "your enthusiasm for this monument thrills us deeply," he continued, costing him a few more. Tauriel felt a tightness in her throat, sensing Bard's speech may not be as well-received as he had imagined.

He turned his head to scrutinise the statue. For the first time, Tauriel got a good look of the man he had become; his skin was fairer and clearer than any of his ancestors, his hair darker and straighter, and he was almost a head shorter than his father, who was - like his forebears - admittedly a tall man himself.

"I was named for my great-grandfather," he said, pointing to Bard. "It was my father's hope that when I came to kingship, I would show the very attributes which make him great, and I stand here today, as Crown Prince at last, to promise you, Dale, that I will!"

If Bard was expecting a rousing reception, he was disappointed. A brief smattering of applause and some appreciative nodding was all he got. Taking it in his stride, he, unfortunately for everyone, continued.

"This city was destroyed by fire," he enthused, "but retaken in war, and rebuilt with its spoils. He," he said, pointing to Bard, "long foresaw the doom that would come, and when it did, he was ready. As we must be."

Tauriel's eyes widened in shock. She immediately looked to Brand, whose placid face had turned hard, pulling his belt up as though preparing to administer a thumping. The crowd, meanwhile, were beginning to make its disinterest clear.

"When I am king, I will make sure the army of Dale is the finest in the North," he proclaimed, as one or two near the back started to drift away back to their lives. "A city of bowmen, just like my ancestor! In what way could I better live up to his name?"

"Wear taller shoes!" A old voice boomed out from somewhere in the middle of the crowd, eliciting a roar of laughter. Tauriel had to bite her lip to keep herself from joining in. Bard's practiced, politician's smile disappeared quicker than a spring frost. He turned to a guard, ostensibly to order him to find and arrest the troublemaker, but before he could speak his father's hand gripped his wrist powerfully.

"That is enough," he hissed, pulling him back like a misbehaving toddler. The royal party returned to the palace under armed guard as the crowd jeered more and began to drift away, their laughter dissipating. As the dignitaries followed behind the royal train like lap-dogs, Tauriel remained, watching both sides of Dale life return to their everyday lives, until she found herself alone in the courtyard but for a well-dressed woman of late middle age on the other side of the statue. The woman shot her a warm smile which Tauriel found familiar, yet unplaceable.

"What do you think?" The woman asked her, nodding towards the statue. Her voice was smoothed by years of comfortable living, but still unmistakably Daleish.

"It's very impressive," Tauriel replied. "The way Bard is leaning backwards so heavily it seems as if he'll topple over is a sign of excellent craftsmanship and balance in the piece. The arrow, too, it's flawless."

The woman shook her head dismissively, walking slowly over to Tauriel. "No, not the statue itself. Which is lovely," she said, "but do you think it represents them well? Does it look like them?" Her deep brown eyes, though ringed with wrinkles, twinkled with effervescence. Tauriel was taken slightly aback at the woman's familiarity and probing.

"It definitely looks Bard," she said. "But Bain, it's missing-"

"The freckles," the woman said, taking the words straight out of Tauriel's mouth. "All the paintings, too, all of his life. They all left out the freckles," she said with a strange smile, gazing up at the dead king's young face.

Tauriel's mouth opened and closed dumbly. "You knew Bain?" she said, eventually. The woman's smile spread and she regarded Tauriel with a cheeky look.

"I knew you," she said, "but you don't seem to remember me." Tauriel regarded her with a kind of shock; after her words earlier of an Elf's mind being as clear as day, she found herself having to eat them. "The day we met, you killed six Orcs in my kitchen, and then you saved the life of a Dwarf that had climbed out of my toilet," she said as Tauriel's eyebrows rose in belated recognition. "And do you know, that wasn't even the strangest thing to happen to me that week."

"Tilda!" Tauriel breathed, elated, wrapping her arms around the old woman and embracing her warmly. Tilda chucked merrily as she stroked Tauriel's back.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Tilda said as they parted, "for teasing you, but I couldn't help it. It's not every day one gets to hoodwink an Elf."

"Tilda, you look...you look…" Tauriel struggled for words. Tilda, Bard's youngest daughter and Brand's aunt, would have to be well into her seventies by now, but looked like a woman yet to reach sixty.

"Not as old as you'd imagined?" Tilda filled in for her with a knowing wink. "I've you to thank for that," she said as the two of them walked back into the palace, arm-in-arm.

"How so?" Tauriel asked.

"Kingsfoil," Tilda replied. "I eat it with everything. Raw, boiled or fried. I've taken to carrying my own," she said, lifting a small cloth sack from her belt and opening it to reveal the tell-tale sweet scent of the plant Tauriel knew as _athelas_. "Nearly everyone thinks I'm mad, I'm the only person who cooks with it. Some people even seem convinced it's a poison, but...well, just look at me."

Tauriel laughed softly. The charm and ingenuity of humans still continued to surprise her. "Even the Elves have never thought to eat athelas," she admitted. "We consider it...too humble for the plate," she said, almost apologetically.

"Well, when I saw you bring that Dwarf back from the brink of death with a handful of weeds, I thought you must be onto something," Tilda replied. Tauriel nodded, but her mind was immediately filled with the memory of Kili's agonised face, the stink of putrefying flesh. "I often wonder what happened to him; do you know?"

"He died," Tauriel said, almost immediately. "In the battle." She cleared her throat. "Saving my life," she added, with a sad smile. Tilda nodded sympathetically and squeezed Tauriel's arm. Together they returned to the throne room just in time to see the door to Brand's private chambers behind the throne slam shut, with Bard nowhere to be seen.

"I think my nephew may have a thing or two to discuss with his son," Tilda murmured. Tauriel nodded in agreement.

"They're not much alike, are they?" Tauriel asked. The various courtiers around them warmed themselves with glasses of brandy and shared dour looks as they discussed the "folly" that stood in the courtyard.

"Of course not," Tilda replied, as though it were patently obvious why. "It all comes down to Bard's schooling."

"I thought he was sent to Minas Tirith, like his father?" Tauriel asked.

"Ah, but in Brand's time, Ecthelion sat in the Chair of the Steward," Tilda reminded her. "As wise and thoughtful a ruler as Gondor has seen in this Age. His son Denethor is...not so noble," she finished darkly. "He's set his stamp on the boy; rude, proud, and vainglorious. Not to mention filling his head with all this nonsense about the 'coming storm'."

"Storm?" Tauriel asked, politely declining a glass of brandy while Tilda took one in each hand.

"Mmm," Tilda nodded as she took a sip. "Denethor's convinced that Mordor's been too quiet for too long. I'm sure you heard Gondor retook Osgiliath in the summer?" Tauriel stepped back, surprised.

"I hadn't," she confessed. "I keep my eyes on the North."

"Well, Denethor's eager to shore up his defenses; to turn Osgiliath into a garrison and make it into a bulwark against the forces of Mordor, which he's sure will open its gates sooner rather than later. Sadly, young Bard has rather taken his mentor's ranting to heart," Tilda sighed, finishing one glass and moving onto the next.

"How do you know all this?" Tauriel asked. Tilda smirked.

"One thing you'll never learn, Tauriel," she replied, conspiratorially. "When you're an old woman, men feel bold about discussing things in your presence, as though you were a piece of furniture. All they see is a doddery old dowager with a fondness for drink." She downed her second glass and set it down, then rifled through the bag at her belt and stuffed her mouth with a handful of kingsfoil. "I haven't been drunk in forty years," she mumbled proudly, chewing like a cow on cud. Tauriel suppressed an instinctive wince and nodded.

Across the way, the door to Brand's private chambers opened and Bard, looking alternately chastened and furious, slunk out, clanking his way out of the throne room. A few minutes later, Brand followed, wearing neither his royal regalia nor his trademark easy smile. He gave Tauriel a weary, serious look, and then quit the throne room himself. Tauriel was unnerved; if the biggest Kingdom of Men in the North was headed by a quarrelling son and father, then the outlook was grim for everyone. As a servant passed, she grabbed a glass of brandy and drank. Tilda could keep her athelas for now.


	4. A New Power

Brand's word had been good, and the state dinner had, indeed, all been on plates. Most of it had even stayed on them. His advice, to look to the west after sunset, had also been rewarded; a firework display of unparalleled colour and splendour went on for the best part of an hour, the shimmering stars and blazing lights reflecting in the Long Lake as though Smaug had returned to finish the job. The people of Dale had crammed onto rooftops and lined the city wall to get the best view of the display, and shouted and whooped at every explosion. Afterwards, street parties had swung on until the very wee hours, fires burning and bands playing until almost sunrise.

The next morning, she waited until later in the day until leaving than she had at Erebor. No-one had insulted her in Dale - not that she remembered, at least - and it smelled considerably better, too. The bitter wind that had blasted the plains of the last few days had finally let up, so after breakfast she pulled a favour and saw herself admitted to the palace's guard tower, the highest point in all the city. From there, she could see all three of the great realms of the North - Erebor, Mirkwood, and Dale itself. In a cloudless sky, the autumn sun shone brightly, glinting off the golden axes of the multitude of statues that lined the outer wall of Erebor, twinkling like starlight. She always disliked leaving Dale; despite being less recognised than she was in Erebor, Bard's family had always made her feel not just welcome but a part of the household, an honour Thranduil, no matter how much he appreciated her service, would never extend to her.

Her thoughts drifted back to last night. The food, she had to confess, had not been a patch on that served at the Thorin's Day feast. But the atmosphere in Dale, though just as jubilant and raucous as it had been in Erebor, had a certain something extra; a genuine gratitude, a catharsis - a simple thankfulness just to be alive. These were people whose ancestors had seen their city lost, their families slaughtered, and the survivors pressed into serfdom in a floating shanty town, only for the same thing to happen to their own descendents. The people of Dale were known to rate themselves the hardiest people in Middle-Earth; Tauriel was hard-pressed to disagree. They had been whittled down, by famine, fire and force, to the strongest of the strong. They were the great survivors of Middle-Earth.

Tauriel had spent some time the previous night walking the streets of Dale, milling from party to party, seeing the common folk celebrate. They danced, wrestled and made love in the streets with wild abandon. Every few metres a new drink was pressed into her hand; there seemed an inexhaustible supply of the stuff. Elves were hugely resistant to most of the brews Men and Dwarves could concoct, but the sheer volume of alcohol Tauriel consumed eventually started to make her head swim. She had vague memories of beating four men in a row in arm-wrestling contests, and dozens of women complimenting her new hair. Tauriel had meant to return it to her normal style when she returned to Mirkwood, but it had grown on her, and its evident popularity had made up her mind.

After a few hours of watching the world go by beneath her, Tauriel decided to leave while she still had the light. In the courtyard, as Aelfar was being saddled, she encountered Brand, Bard and a dozen horsemen riding in through the main gates bearing three slaughtered does. Tauriel smirked. _He'll take him hunting,_ Tilda had predicted the night before. _It's how Bain used to smooth things over after arguments._ Brand dismounted, his cheeks flushed with exertion, and greeted Tauriel.

"Off to tell Thranduil all my deepest, darkest secrets?" He quipped as a squire helped him remove his armour.

"I'm not a spy," Tauriel chided him.

"No, worse, you're a diplomat," Brand retorted. "You're a spy I have to feed." Tauriel couldn't help but smile at Brand's cheeky smirk. He looked so like his grandfather. "I think I'd better re-introduce you two," he said gesturing Bard over from where he was being divested of his armour. "Tauriel, Bard. Bard, Tauriel."

Bard walked over, a far cry from the cocksure figure he'd appeared yesterday. His gaze hardly met Tauriel's, as though keenly aware of how he'd embarrassed himself in front of her. Here, his youth was laid bare as he stood awkwardly next to his father, occasionally glancing up at him for reassurance. He was, Tauriel realised, in awe of him; it was no wonder he sought to live up to him so bombastically.

"I hadn't seen you since you were an infant," Tauriel greeted him. Bard only smiled nervously, fiddling with his hair.

"They grow up so quickly, don't they?" Brand said to fill the awkward silence, laying a heavy hand on Bard's shoulder. "Though some could always stand to grow up a little more," he muttered into Bard's ear as he pulled the boy to him roughly, tousling his hair. Bard wriggled from his father's grasp and straightened his hair, blushing. Tauriel couldn't help but giggle. "Ah, inside with you," he commanded him. "I'll see you later." Bard nodded.

"Good day, Tauriel," he said softly as he passed her, walking hurriedly back into the palace. Tauriel's eyebrows rose in surprise.

"He talks," she remarked to Brand. "Not just when there's a crowd." Brand smiled bashfully.

"Aye," he said, "we had a...discussion about that. I can't stay angry at him, though; I remember being young and full of myself."

"I remember it too," Tauriel said teasingly.

"I've one thing to ask you before you leave," Brand said, his hard eyes darting left and right to make sure no-one, not even his guards, was eavesdropping. "The monument. What did people think?"

Tauriel laughed, confused. "Brand, you were there," she replied. "The people loved it." Brand shook his head.

"I mean _them_ ," he said quietly, nodding his head back towards the palace. "What did they think?"

Tauriel's brow furrowed. She had suspected Brand would notice his courtier's odd behaviour during the unveiling. "They...didn't seem happy. I'm not sure why. And later they spoke at length about how they felt it was…'a problem." Brand sighed deeply, his lips a tight and angry line. He took Tauriel by the arm and led her farther away from the palace.

"There are those," he began, as quietly as a grandmother in prayer, "who would see Dale without a king. They say it is for the benefit of the people, but secretly, they want to return it to the ways of Esgaroth. Of Masters, and their councils. Corrupt bureaucrats who rule for profit."

"Who are these people?" Tauriel asked, shocked. Brand smirked sardonically.

"Who do you think? Landowners, businessmen, judges. Men with no titles but plenty of gold."

"And you let them into your court?" Tauriel asked.

"But of course," Brand replied. "Where else does one keep one's enemies but within arm's reach?"

"I've always found the end of a knife is most accommodating," Tauriel replied smartly. Brand chuckled as he walked her back to Aelfar.

"You'd make a hell of a Queen," he said. "But this is why I'm so concerned for Bard. When I'm gone, he'll need to be as strong a king as any of his forefathers to keep Dale together and out of the hands of these crooks. That's why I named him so," he admitted, a touch embarrassed. "I hoped to...invoke something of granda'," he said with a nervous laugh. Tauriel smiled warmly and stroked his arm.

"You and he have many years ahead of you," she told him, "to make him, and his children, exactly what Dale needs them to be." Brand nodded, his eyes tightly closed.

"What would he think of me?" He asked, staring up into the sky, where the first clouds of the day began to creep into view. "You knew him. How would he view my kingship?" Tauriel put a hand on Brand's broad shoulder.

"He'd be very proud of you," she said firmly. "You've kept Dale peaceful and wealthy. That's all he could have asked of you."

Bard sighed deeply, nodding slowly. "Give my regards to King Thranduil," he said, offering a hand to help Tauriel mount Aelfar. She forsook offense in favour of appreciating the gesture. "And come back soon."

"I will, of course, your Majesty," she replied, inclining her head deeply as she took the reins in her hand. With a tug and a spur, Aelfar whinnied and galloped out of the palace.

* * *

There was still an hour to go before sunset when Tauriel came to the eastern border gate of the Woodland Realm. Red light bloomed from the west, cold and weak, barely penetrating the canopy. She could smell it in the air; the dying leaves, the freezing ground. Winter was coming. Winter in the wilderlands was something only the strongest survived. Even in the comfort of Thranduil's realm, the cold brought hardship. It would still be some weeks before the first snows, but Tauriel knew that the Elves of Mirkwood would already be preparing.

She was admitted through the gates and saluted by a pair of Silvan Elves. Returning the gesture, she trotted Aelfar gently along the road that led from the border to the city, passing a number of her people on the way. All greeted her and asked for news from the wilderlands; Tauriel had come to be seen as a link to the outside world, their scout in the realms of Dwarves and Men. Despite their questioning, she gave the same answer she ever did: "Dale is still cold, and Erebor still smells of dragon." Anything more was for the ears of her Lord only.

At the gates of the Realm itself, she dismounted Aelfar and led him inside. She spoke to him quietly and stroked his smooth muzzle as his ears pricked up at the smell of home. Her sense of smell might not be as good as her horse's, but she felt much the same sensation of excitement at impending rest. Things endured in her homeland; for long Ages of Middle-Earth, the Sindar and Silvan Elves had lived within the ancient caves of the forest and history had flowed around them. In a changeable and unpredictable world, sometimes that was exactly what Tauriel needed.

She led Aelfar down winding walkways carved from the roots of the trees above to the lowest, deepest caves, where families of Silvan Elves lived together in nooks and crannies older than the Eldar themselves; they cooked, they sang, they worked here, on dark soil far below the sun. Soft lights that pulsed like fireflies lined every thoroughfare and hung from every wall, and the voices of playing children and bartering traders echoed through their cavern home. Fishermen sat in tiny vessels on the huge bodies of water that gathered at the cave's uttermost bottom, the lights from their lamps shimmering on the surface; a starry sky for cave-dwellers. Friends and well-wishers greeted Tauriel and gave Aelfar a scratch behind the ears as she walked him to his stable, and Tauriel thought - not for the first time - how surprised the Dwarves and Men of Middle-Earth would be if they learned that Elves were not all, as they suspected, blond-haired royalty living in gilded luxury, but common craftsmen and homemakers like them. It was an aspect of Elven life their rulers had been careful to keep discreet. The Dwarves, Tauriel had long thought, had nothing on the Elves for secrecy.

"Tauriel! Tauriel!" High-pitched squeals cut through the chatter. Before she knew it, Tauriel was mobbed by half a dozen long-haired Silvan infants, cuddling at her legs and stroking Aelfar's flanks. "Where were you? Did you see the Dwarves? Tell us of the Dwarves!"

Tauriel laughed and knelt to embrace each of the children. "I never knew Elves to be so inquisitive!" She said, reaching into her saddlebag as the children looked at each other in excitement, jumping up and down with anticipation at what they knew was coming. "We all know, don't we," she said conspiratorially, "that the Dwarves are the best toymakers in Middle-Earth?" The children screamed with joy and grabbed greedily as she pulled dolls, clockwork animals and other delightful Dwarven wares from her bag, dispersing them liberally amongst her small crowd.

After several minutes of fielding questions which came at her as quick as only excited children can manage, the calls of parents dragged each of them away. Tauriel finished walking Aelfar - who had taken the children's noise and commotion with excellent grace - to his bed, where he immediately stuck his nose into a large bundle of hay. Stroking her faithful steed's shoulders as he ate, Tauriel wished she could stay a little longer in the Silvan village. However, far above her, the ruler of this Realm awaited her report.

The climb from the cavern floor to the royal residences was a long and arduous one, even for an Elf. Over millennia the Elves of the forest had dug into its rock deep and far enough to put any Dwarven realm to shame, in the tradition of Menegroth and Nargothrond, those mighty underground Elven cities of the First Age. Over tree-root bridges and up carved stone stairs Tauriel made her way to where she could finally see the sunlight, or what little remained of it. The sky was blood-red, and soon the stars would shine through the huge skylights in the roof of the cavern, treating Sindar and Silvan alike to their beloved glow. On the stairs below the highest peak of the cave, a heavily-armoured guard allowed Tauriel to pass and enter King Thranduil's councilroom.

A massive circular table, a single slice from the trunk of an incalculably ancient tree, dominated the room, flanked by high-backed wooden chairs, one of which was topped with the antlers of a stag. Papers and notes littered it, spilling out over the floor those which weren't held down with gems, jewels, weapons or curios. The Elvenking stood at the opposite end of the long, unwalled space, gazing out from a large natural fissure in the rock to the East. In the distance, Erebor almost disappeared over the horizon, while Dale was only visible by the light of its torches, a burning scar on the landscape. Even with his back turned to her, Tauriel always felt a kind of intensity pouring off of him, a sense that he had one foot in a world dark and subtle.

"My Lord Thranduil," Tauriel said, clasping her hand to her chest and taking a knee. "I have returned from Dale and Erebor and I am ready to submit my report, should you wish it."

Thranduil's head rose slightly, the golden tips of his autumn crown glinting in the dying sun. "I do," he replied. "Welcome back, Tauriel."

"Thank you, my Lord," Tauriel replied. 'It's good to be home."

Tauriel spent the next few hours recounting in detail the events of her few days away from the Woodland Realm; the Thorin's Day feast and Dáin's play, Brand's statues and Bard's misbehaviour. Thranduil sat in impassive silence throughout, his bright blue eyes boring into Tauriel's, as though he were absorbing every last detail. At length, Tauriel came to the end of her story.

"Immediately before I left, Brand asked me how Bard - the elder one - would view his kingship. If he would approve," she said. Thranduil's brow rose minutely. "I assured him he would."

"Interesting," Thranduil said, finally. Tauriel was taken aback.

"Which part, Lord?" She asked. She thought she could see the hint of a smirk at the corner of his lip.

"All of it," he replied, reclining insouciantly. "In degrees." Tauriel was used to Thranduil's inscrutability, but currently he seemed positively riddlesome. He finally broke from Tauriel's gaze to stare absently into space, stroking the golden stag head which topped his sceptre. "All of it tells me something. Everything becomes relevant, eventually." Tauriel nodded politely, unsure what to say. In the years following Five Armies, as Thranduil and his Realm had become more open to the outside world, so too had he become more obsessed with knowing about it. He was known to probe his operatives for hours to explore the nuance of a single sentence spoken by an ally. "You've done well," he said shortly, rising from his chair to return to his viewing spot, facing away.

"Thank you, my Lord," Tauriel replied, understanding that she had been dismissed. She stood to leave, but as the reached the top of the stairs, a question that had been gnawing at her grabbed her by the shoulder and forced her to remain. "My Lord," she asked, not turning around, "how is it possible that Gondor could retake Osgiliath and I not know about it?" She was met with silence. She turned, only to find Thranduil now facing her, shoulders hunched and head tilted forward like a hawk preparing to dive. Even from yards away, the Elvenking was intimidating. Her words had been an accusation, and Thranduil did not take accusations kindly.

"Your duty is to the North," he replied, his face as impassive as ever but with the merest hint of command in the tone of his voice. "Osgiliath is over three hundred leagues from here, and of no relevance to your interests."

"Forgive me," she replied, "but I thought everything was of relevance."

"To me," Thranduil retorted. "Certainly. But remember your place, Tauriel. Only the hub sees the turn of the wheel." With a narrow-eyed glare he turned slowly away from her, his golden robe flowing around his feet. His dismissal was as incontestable as the slamming of a door. Bowing her head, abashed, Tauriel descended the stairs. From his vantage-point overlooking all of the East, she thought of how very much Thranduil had come to resemble the spiders that infested their forest; a long-limbed lier-in-wait, sitting at the centre of a vast web through which only he knew the safe path. Tauriel had tugged at the wrong string.

* * *

Weeks passed. With no further word from Thranduil and no indication when she might be called into service again, Tauriel had spent most of her time in her rooms, catching up with long-neglected correspondence and writing her diaries. As an ambassador, her lodgings were now rather more comfortable than when she had been a mere border guard, and most of the extra space had been given up to reams upon reams of paper, full of recollections, observations, and communications from the farthest edges of the civilised world. In the last sixty years, Tauriel had seen more of Middle-Earth than a great deal of Elves had in this Age; she had travelled to the utter West to the Grey Havens to meet with Cirdan the Shipwright, the oldest Elf in Middle-Earth, and to the South to the mighty Gondorian port-city of Pelargir at the mouth of the Anduin. Her memoirs, when written, would fill a library.

On one wall, a huge map of the known limits of Middle-Earth had been painted, at her own request, with astonishing skill and detail. It was here, sat at her writing-desk, that Tauriel liked to study, and imagine, what secrets Middle-Earth was hiding. Her interest - fascination, really - with the world at large had earned her mockery from other Elves, especially her fellow Silvans. For they, even more so than the golden-headed Sindar who ruled the Woodland Realm, prized endurance in one place; the Sindar, at least, had completed the Great Journey from Cuivienen, the Elves' ancestral home, across the sea to Valinor. The Silvan Elves were descended from those who had, all those hundreds of millennia ago, reached the great forests of Beleriand and refused to go further. They had never seen the light of the Two Trees; they were blameless in the great Doom of the Elves, to spend their blood in futile war against Morgoth. The vindicated virtues of staying put and keeping your head down were well-known to them, and practically gospel.

Tauriel reached for another scrapbook from the huge mound of papers next to her writing-desk. As she rifled through its pages, a loose leaf tumbled out and made Tauriel's heart skip. From across the years, Kíli's smiling face looked out at her. She picked up the page and traced the lines of ink with her fingers; age had yellowed the parchment, fraying it at the edges, but the deep black of the ink, dark as his hair had been, still stood out boldly. She found herself smiling, too, as she recalled that cheeky, self-satisfied smirk. Beneath the image, though, a name scrawled in Dwarvish runes made her smile drop.

 _Ori._

Tauriel sighed and lay the paper down. On one page, two Dwarves taken long before their time. Tauriel could only imagine what kind of horrible, protracted fate the Dwarves who tried to recolonise Moria had met with; how desperate young Ori's final moments must have been. She recalled the day Ori had given her the sketch, made during a moment of peace on their long quest. It was only a few days after the Battle of Five Armies, when Tauriel was assisting with the clean-up and wounded. _You need it more than her_ , he'd told her, his eyes wet with tears. That Ori had decided to bequeath the drawing to Tauriel, rather than Dis, had always endeared him to her.

It was what inspired her to travel. Being reminded, at such a time of grief, that Kíli was not just someone who was dead but who had been alive, been happy, travelled the world and seen so much in such a short time, had let her begin to build a life of her own, outside of the Woodland Realm. It was that next decade, spent travelling the length and breadth of the world, which Tauriel was now sorting through the assorted scribbled memories of. It was an impossible task; Tauriel had filled more books than she could count, and not all of them dated, either. After weeks of work she seemed even more confused than when she had started, so when an unexpected knock came at her door, Tauriel was more than happy for the interruption.

"Come," she called, setting down her quill. A captain of the Royal Guard entered the room, his helmet tucked under his arm. Tauriel's eyes widened. This meant only one thing.

"Lord Thranduil requests your presence, Ambassador," the guard, a young Sindar, said. Tauriel stood and was immediately escorted out.

"Are you permitted to tell me why his Lordship requires me?" She asked as they approached the walkway to the throne room.

"Lord Thranduil did not enlighten me," he replied. "I'm sure he has his reasons for wanting you, _Ambassador_ ," he said, coming to a stop and facing Tauriel with cold, disdainful eyes. Tauriel's eyes narrowed. It was no secret that Sindar whom Tauriel technically outranked despised her, seeing her as lower form of life who had slithered above her station. Their eons of privilege, however, had made them bold, and it was some years, and a number of embarrassments, before they learned to keep their disgust subtle.

"Thank you," she replied with a curtsey. "Soldier," she sneered. She turned smartly on her heels and made her way up the walkway.

"I love what you've done with your hair!" Came an echoing reply, followed by the sound of hurried, heavy footsteps. Tauriel stopped short and clenched her fists tightly, using all her self-control not to turn around and escalate the situation. Taking a few deep breaths, she resumed her walk and turned into the circular throne room to find Thranduil stood before his own throne, looking up at it as if in contemplation.

"You sent for me, Lord?" She asked, head bowed. Thranduil seemed to take an age to reply; so long, in fact, that Tauriel almost risked repeating herself.

"Tauriel, what do you know of the East?" He asked with his back still turned to her. Tauriel frowned.

"Could you...clarify that, Sire?" She replied.

"The lands beyond the Iron Hills. Rhûn. Khand. Núrn. The Orocarni." Tauriel's eyes widened. Thranduil's scope and reach had slowly been growing wider, but this was a bold move indeed.

"N-nothing, my Lord," she replied. "Beyond the little that's generally known."

"Humour me," Thranduil said, turning his head so that only a bright eye and silver-flecked eyebrow could be seen. Tauriel nodded.

"They're wild, untameable lands," she replied. "Long in league with Sauron, of old. Even the Dwarves hear little from their cousins in the Red Mountains. They are...dark places, Sire."

"As I thought," Thranduil replied. Tauriel held her breath as she formulated her next question, remembering how Thranduil had so coldly shut her down the last time she tried to understand his motives.

"My Lord, as your emissary to our allies in the East, I must advise you that," she paused as Thranduil's head tilted slightly, "establishing links with these realms would not be to our benefit. The risk far outweighs any possible reward." She stood with her hands behind her back, ready for her Lord's wrath and prepared to argue her point. To her surprise, however, Thranduil's head sunk with a sigh.

"That was not my intention," he admitted. "Nor why I asked you here." He turned to face Tauriel, who almost gasped when she took in her Lord's expression. His usual inscrutability was gone, replaced with a troubled look. Something had him scared.

"My Lord," Tauriel asked softly, "what's wrong?"

"The same day you returned," Thranduil began, his voice finding strength once more, "I sent Legolas to Imladris, to speak with the chieftain of the Dunedain. We were holding a prisoner of his in the cells, a prisoner who...escaped," he said, with a touch of embarrassment. "But when he arrived, Legolas learned that events far greater than one fled prisoner were unfolding. The details are irrelevant but confirm all my operatives have been telling me for years." Thranduil closed the gap between himself and Tauriel, eyes darting left and right as he shrunk down to lay his lips by her ear.

"The Enemy has returned."

Tauriel felt like she had been punched in the stomach. Sauron, Gorthaur, the God of Cruelty - Sindar and Silvan alike knew him by many names, but only a few had lived through his terrible reign. Tauriel counted herself blessed that she had not.

"Truly?" She whispered, horrified. Thranduil nodded.

"Barad-dûr is rebuilt, the fires of Orodruin are re-lit, and the Nine walk amongst us. The Dark Lord has called in his bannermen," he said bitterly.

"What can we do?" Tauriel asked, feeling for the first time in many years like a hopeless child, looking to the vastly older Thranduil for guidance.

"Prepare," he replied boldly, straightening up and walking around her. "Any assault on this Realm will come either from the south, from Dol Guldur, or from the east. I can deal with Dol Guldur, but…" He paused, standing behind Tauriel. "You know the East better than any of us."

"Orders, Sire," she replied, turning to face him, full of fire and an urge to action. "Tell me what you need of me."

Thranduil stood straighter, the hint of a smile tugged at his mouth. From time to time, he betrayed these morsels of emotion; just enough to remind Tauriel that a heart beat inside that golden robe."Word has reached me of an Easterling general who has gained power at a remarkable rate," he said as he crossed to the stairs that led to his throne. "Whole nations are falling to him and joining his ranks. It is said that he has been anointed as the warlord of all the East by Khamûl himself," Thranduil said as he ascended the steps to his throne. "You will go to the Iron Hills. You will venture as deep into the East as you dare and you will learn everything you can about him, and his army." Tauriel clasped her hand to her chest and bowed deeply.

"Yes, my Lord," she replied enthusiastically. "I'll leave at dawn." Thranduil nodded and dismissed her with a wave of his hand. For the second time, however, another nagging question forced her to remain. Tauriel could never let a hunch go.

"How did you come by this information, Sire?" She asked. Thranduil looked down his nose at her, then broke out into a wide smile and sat slowly down in his throne, kicking his legs over one arm.

"Good day, Tauriel," he replied.

* * *

 _My servant._

Khamûl's face, again, appeared unbidden in a vision.

 _You are mighty. Your armies are strong. But you are not yet great._

How not?

 _To defeat the kingdoms of the Mountain and the Forest, you will need more than men._

What could be "more than men"?

 _You need the power of Morgoth himself._

How is that possible?

 _We have found them._

Oh, yes. Yes.

 _Use them, and lay the North to ruin._

Yes, Khamûl, my Master.

The Mountain will fall, the Forest will burn, and the North will tremble to my name.

Margiz.


	5. Perspective

**After a break for Christmas and the return to work - we go again!**

 **Phil**

* * *

Winter had come to the North. Every day fresh snows blanketed the plains of Dale until the entirety of the Lonely Mountain was as white as its peak, and the green stone of Erebor glistened with ice. Watchfires along the inner wall banished the worst of it, islands of warmth in the face of the cold. Alongside Dwalin a Dwarven youth, still in his fifties, shivered and warmed his hands over the flames.

"A word of advice, son," the Captain of the Guard muttered to the young soldier. "Learn to like the cold. You'll see plenty of it." In stark contrast to the soldier in full armour and furs, Dwalin faced the wind that whistled and bit over the rampants in just a battered leather coat, snowflakes creating glints of white in his grey beard.

"Aye, Sir," the soldier replied enthusiastically, clenching his teeth to stop them chattering, and straightened up and away from the fire. "Can't be as cold as Ravenhill was, anyway."

Dwalin gave a small smirk. The new soldiers, having grown up with tales of the deeds of Thorin and his Company, often tried to tease war stories out of the legendary general. Dwalin appreciated the soldier's craftiness, and indulged him.

"Oh, that was cold, and no mistake," he said as the two marched slowly along the inner wall, appreciating the view of Dale's towers topped with snow. "Your piss'd freeze 'fore it hit the ground up there." The young soldier laughed loudly, his breath a torrent of steam in the cold air. As they stopped to admire the beauty of the Celduin frozen over, its surface a solid white plain with ruts and stalagmites to rival any cave, he removed his helmet, flushed and boldened by Dwalin's resilience. His cheeks were plump and red, and his blonde beard was scraggly and barely past his chest.

"Permission to ask a question, Sir," he asked.

"Permission granted, Harod," Dwalin replied. The young man looked left and right, as though wary of eavesdroppers - or simply embarrassed.

"Is it true you drove a war chariot down the river that day?"

Dwalin chuckled lowly. "Technically," he replied, "my brother Balin drove. I manned the crossbow." Harod's face lit up with delight like a child on Durin's Day.

"It must have been glorious," the youth gushed, "facing down an entire army of goblins!" Dwalin's smile faltered slightly. The boy was young, and knew no better.

"No," he said quietly. "No battle is glorious. Not after the dead have been counted." Harod's grin disappeared and he lowered his head in contrition. "I was at Azanulzibar," Dwalin continued, crossing to the edge of the wall and laying his hand on a snow-covered rampart. "Nearly a century before Five Armies. The two greatest battles of the Dwarves of their time. I've no wish to see the third." He swept the snow away with a brush of his hand, as though he were dusting. "Doesn't mean I'm not ready for it," he added, crossing back to the soldier and laying a hand on his shoulder. "Stay ready, Harod," he commanded him. "That's the secret of being a soldier."

"Aye, Sir," Harod replied with gusto, standing straight. "Do...do you think it's coming?" Dwalin regarded him with uncertainty. "The third."

Dwalin breathed deeply; the frozen air stung his nostrils and brought a sharp sense of clarity. "I'm not sure," he muttered confidentially. "When you've been a soldier as long as I have, you get canny to war. You can smell it," he said, stalking back down the wall as Harod trotted after him, "like a hunting-dog catching the scent."

"What do you smell, Captain?" Harod asked, suddenly nervous. Dwalin shook his head. In his jacket pocket, his snow-wet left hand shivered.

"Something," he whispered. "I've seen over two hundred winters, but this one feels bitterer than most. As though the wind were carrying something more than frost." Harod gulped.

"Enemy!" Came the call, almost lost against the shriek of the wind, from the gatehouse. As bells began to ring both Dwalin and Harod, and a number of other soldiers, flocked to the edge of the wall to get a look and take up defensive positions.

"Stay calm, boys!" Dwalin bellowed at his soldiers. "Form your line!" The soldiers hurried into a thick, long line which spanned the length of the wall, pikes at their side, as Dwalin peered out over the ramparts. Was it a false alarm? Where were the enemy?

Coming down the ridge of the hill, Dwalin picked out five jet-black figures leaving a grey wake in the snow as the legs of armoured horses ploughed through it. Puffs of steam trailed them, as though the horses' shoes were fresh from the forge. There was only one place such dread apparitions could have come from: Mordor. But this was no raiding party; no-one could hope to take Erebor with such a small number.

"Maintain the line," Dwalin ordered as he followed their path along the wall. As they reached the gatehouse, he ran to the furthest edge of the wall so he could see them approaching the front gates. They stopped in a line a few yards from the wall. The one in the middle appeared to speak, but his words were lost on the wind. After a minute or two, the horsemen drew back a few yards. "This isn't good," Dwalin muttered to himself. "Not good at all." A few moments later, a nervous-sounding Dwarf burst out of the walkway from the gatehouse, crying Dwalin's name.

"What is it, soldier?" Dwalin asked as the Dwarf babbled and panted, fear-stricken. "Speak!" He barked.

"It's...it's the Enemy, Sir," he managed, finally. "They want to talk. To...to the King."

* * *

"I cannae believe," Daín grumbled as he was fitted into his breastplate, "that I'm missing my portrait sitting for these Mordor filth. This guy's got a waiting list as long as my arm, ye ken, and he doesnae do favours."

Dwalin smirked. "I doubt these'll be lengthy negotiations," he replied.

"Patience, Dwalin," Daín replied as his valets lifted a heavy fur robe onto his shoulders and fastened it beneath his chin, the clasp becoming part of his impressive beard-armour. "I'm no' leaving 'til I know good and sure what they want."

"Every Dwarf in Erebor dead," Dwalin replied flatly.

"We'll have tae disappoint them there," Daín muttered as huge, thick gold rings were slipped onto his fingers, "but, you know, tha's what negotiations are for." Daín's private chambers were as opulent as anyone in Middle-Earth would imagine the King of its richest nation to have: a bed large enough for seven dwarves to sleep abreast dominated the bedroom, while abutting the room was a walk-in wardrobe which was bigger than some houses Dwalin had lived in. Works of art had been carved into every wall and the ceiling, and the pelts of the rarest and most fierce creatures in Middle-Earth lined the floor as rugs. And everywhere, gold fittings and jewelled trinkets hung from hooks, stood on tables, or littered surfaces. It was as if someone had turned the vault itself into a bedroom. Daín admired himself in a mirror as tall as four Dwarves stood on each other's shoulders.

Daín's valets finished dressing him and backed out of the room, bowing lowly. "Well, how do I look?" He asked with a sigh.

"Terrifying, Sire," Dwalin replied drolly. "Majestic, awe-inspiring, regal, mighty, all-powerful…"

"Alrigh', alrigh', alrigh'!" Daín cut off Dwalin's list of superlatives, grumpily. "'Mon, then. Let's see what these bastards want."

Daín parted crowds wherever he walked, but even he and his bodyguards had to struggle to get people out of his way quick enough as a huge throng of bodies had coalesced in the atrium. News of their ominous visitors had spread quickly and now it seemed as though half of Erebor had gathered at the gates, with most of that number calling for them to be opened so they could deliver a patented Lonely Mountain beating. "Make way!" Dwalin shouted, shoving Dwarves this way and that as Daín walked calmly beside him. "Make way for the King!"

A line of shield-bearing soldiers forced the public back from the front gates and allowed enough room for Daín and his entourage to stand comfortably before them. With a deep rumble, the mighty gold-plated gates swung open into the bridge across the moat. It had been widened significantly since the Battle of Five Armies, so much so that a Dwarf who could sprint across the bridge in five seconds or less was considered particularly swift. At the other side of the moat lay the heavily-fortified gatehouse, bristling with artillery and bowmen. The inner doors swung open to admit them, and as their march reached the final gate out of Erebor, Daín held up his hand.

"Only Dwalin and I will go," he announced. "The rest of you, stay here."

"Sire, are you sure that's wise?" Dwalin asked quietly. Daín turned to him with a calm smile.

"Dwarves of Erebor greeting unarmed diplomats with a dozen soldiers?" He asked. "We're braver than that, aren't we?" Dwalin nodded slowly, conceding Daín's point.

"Open the doors," Dwalin called out.

The huge wooden doors creaked open and Daín and Dwalin squinted into the blinding winter sun. The bastards had timed their visit to perfection, Dwalin thought. Silhouetted, Dwalin made out five enormous figures astride horses bigger than any he had ever seen. On each side two figures in dark robes, all identical in shape and grim visage, flanked a being straight out of a nightmare.

"My Lord Sauron sends his greetings, King Under the Mountain," it spoke with a voice which set Dwalin's teeth on edge, deep and phlegmmy. "And would like to extend his condolences over the demise of Erebor's former ruler."

"Strange," Daín replied immediately, "that Thorin's death should so move the one who was ultimately responsible for it."

The figure issued a disgusting, rattling cough, which Dwalin did not immediately realise was supposed to be a laugh. "Forgive me," it said, "but I was referring to my Lord's distant cousin, Smaug the Magnificent, who so ably took this fortress and held it for over a century - not a Dwarf who briefly squatted in it."

Daín nodded politely. "Ah, of course, Smaug. You can go see him while you're here, if you like," he quipped, pointing to the shore of the Long Lake where Smaug's bones had spent the last sixty years bleaching in the sun. The figure's lip curled in contempt, before widening into a sickening smile.

Dwalin had seen horrific things in his two centuries, but none revolted him quite like this... _thing_. If it had once been a man, it was by now something very, very different. Beneath a massive helmet which covered its eyes it spoke from an unnaturally large, lipless mouth, its teeth black and rotten like bad rock. Welts, sores and fissures surrounded the gaping maw, as if the evil it spoke was so pervasive that not even its vessel could withstand its corruption. None of it, however, was as bad as the smell. No battlefield, grave, or butcher's block could contend with the stench that emanated from this company, a primal fear of death and disease made solid. Dwalin's every instinct told him to run; but his rage and duty kept him firm.

"I am the Mouth of Sauron," the figure spoke. "When you treat with me, know that I speak as the will of the Dark Lord himself. When you address me, you address him also."

"Is that so?" Daín replied. "Well, _Sauron_ , I'm Daín Ironfoot, King of Erebor. Tell me...what's brought you crawling out of whatever god-forsaken hole you've been hiding in for the last thousand years, and onto my doorstep?"

The Mouth's fixed smile did not falter. "It is known throughout the lands that the Dwarves of Erebor are the greatest crafters of metal and jewels in Middle-Earth - greatest but for my Lord, of course," he addressed them. "And that in years gone by, there were mighty treasures gifted to your Lords by mine."

"The Rings of Power," Dwalin interjected. The Mouth turned to him with the swiftness of a startled snake.

"The very same," the Mouth replied. "My Lord has no quarrel with the Children of Aulë. He is content to leave you to your mines and mountains, but, in his graciousness, would like to make you an offer." Dwalin's hand moved to his sword-hilt as the Mouth reached a spiked gauntlet up his voluminous sleeve. His grip relaxed slightly as the Mouth produced a small wooden box, such as a Dwarven Lady might keep jewellery in. He extended his arm to Daín, and Dwalin instinctively thrust his arm in front of his King. The Mouth retracted his arm a little and grimaced, as if insulted. Daín raised his hand to Dwalin and stepped forward, taking the box cautiously. As he opened it, bright gold shone in the thin sunlight, enrapturing both himself and Dwalin.

"My Lord Sauron is willing to return the three remaining Dwarven Rings of Power," the Mouth said, "in exchange for your aid." While Daín gazed at the long-lost rings, Dwalin kept an eye on the horsemen at the Mouth's side. They appeared more human than their leader but in their pale faces, beneath their black hoods, Dwalin could see sunken cheeks, pinprick eyes, and putrefying flesh. Whatever foul magic they channeled was clearly destroying them; maybe one day, he thought, they would all end up as wretched a sight as the Mouth himself.

"Very generous," Daín mused, tilting the box until the stones laid in the rings caught the light and glistened. "But what aid does your Lord expect?"

"When he fell," the Mouth explained, "the heretic Isildur took from my Lord's remains a gold ring, as payment for the death of his kin." Daín and Dwalin's shared a conspiratorial look. "My master desires that this theft be put right."

Daín nodded, passing the box to Dwalin and winking at him as he turned. "I see, I see," he mused, stroking his beard. "Well, I'm more than happy to oblige." Daín pulled one of the fat gold rings from his own fingers and offered it to the Mouth. "That's real emerald, too!" He said with a grin as Dwalin struggled to keep a straight face. The Mouth slowly grimaced.

"Alas," he said at length, "my Lord desires this ring in particular." Daín shrugged and slipped the ring back onto his finger.

"Must've been very special to him," he said casually, thumbs in his belt.

"It was...precious to him," the Mouth said, grinning so wide it seemed like his rotten face would split like an over-ripe tomato.

"Precious enough to return these to Dwarven hands," Dwalin commented.

"Aye, forgive me," Daín said, affecting ignorance as he walked closer. The Mouth recoiled, as though being touched by the Dwarf would be a fate worse than death. "But this is a mighty gift for help so humble. What have we poor miners-" he asked, turning to Dwalin exaggeratedly, "-done to deserve such favour?"

The Mouth, still grinning, tilted his head slowly, as though he were explaining a difficult concept to a child. "As I said," he replied, "my Lord does not wish for hostilities between our peoples. Accepting his offer would ensure you do not feel his wrath."

Daín chuckled softly. "See, where I come from, pal," he said, his voice low and threatening, "that's no' an offer. That's a threat."

The false smile finally dropped. "I am disappointed, Ironfoot," the Mouth said, "to find Dwarves as stubborn and argumentative as I had been warned. Accept this mighty gift and ensure the safety of your people in one move - only a fool would reject it!"

"A fool?" Daín asked, his brow raised in surprise. "You take me for a fool? You come to my Kingdom, and ask for _my_ help finding the One Ring, and you say I'm the fool here?" The Mouth's top lip curled in anger and the horsemen shared grim glances. It appeared Daín was not the illiterate blockhead they had hoped him to be. "Tell me this: is it not true that the One Ring allowed your master to control all others fashioned by his hand? Did the Elves not see through his pretence like a cheap cloak?" Dwalin smiled. He had seen Daín pull this trick often; lulling an opponent into the certainty that he was facing a rock-headed barbarian, and then striking with the full force of his keen intellect. "And what promise do I have," he continued, raising his voice as the Mouth became visibly agitated, "that as soon as your master's ring is found, and he sits on his throne in Mordor as the overlord of Middle-Earth, what promise do I have," he repeated, "that we'll not become his lackeys, like you and the rest of your spineless friends?"

"The promise of spears!" The Mouth roared, his rotten teeth bared and gnashing. "The promise of swords, and shields, and a sky black with arrows! The promise of an inferno brought to bear against your realm to make the desolation of Smaug seem like child's play!"

Dwalin jumped in front of Daín, snarling as the eyeless monster loomed over the head of his horse, just inches from his face. The creature's breath was indescribable; just being so close to it made Dwalin feel closer to death than he had ever felt in his life.

"Our people survived Smaug," Daín replied quietly. "They will survive you." He took the box from Dwalin's hand and threw it at the Mouth, who juggled it between hands before landing a grip on it. "We will never do a deal with Sauron."

"History will mark you, Ironfoot," the Mouth growled, "as the last King Under The Mountain."

Daín smirked. "We'll see," he replied. The Mouth shuddered in rage; having to deal with such obstinate creatures was seemingly far beneath his station. With a yell he and his company turned their horses and galloped back up the ridge and out of sight. "Well, that went well," he said brightly to Dwalin as the sound of their hoofbeats faded.

* * *

Getting Daín back inside had been even more difficult than getting him out. In the gatehouse, the great and good of Erebor had blustered and browbeat their way inside, demanding to be the first to talk to the King. Daín had stayed to press the flesh a little and quell the panic, before Dwalin had had to practically push him through the throng and to his war room, buttonholing a number of important-looking Dwarves on his way and forcing them to join his train.

"Seal the doors," Dwalin growled to a soldier once he'd shepherded the last of his catches inside. "Seal them!"

The soldier adjusted his helmet and shuffled over to the doors, straining inwards with the crush of people trying to get in, and pulled down the wooden beam which hung above them. The rattling subsided to muffled thumps, which eventually died away entirely as the crowd realised they weren't getting in. The war room was a small but opulent space, a circular room dominated by an eight-sided table and bristling with ornamental weapons hanging from the walls. The group inside could rightly be said to be the ruling cabal of Erebor; the generals of its army, the masters of its forges, the leaders of its guilds, and its King. Every seat was occupied, with the last few entrants forced to stand.

"For Aulë's sake," one of the generals, a one-eyed old Dwarf, said. "What happened out there?"

Dwalin and Daín shared a look before the King began speaking. "Sauron's herald," he said to gasps of shock. "He came looking to strike a bargain."

"Durin's Beard," a gold-covered merchant swore softly. "What did he want?"

"Dwarvish aid," Dwalin replied. "For his coming War." The gathered Dwarves grumbled and shuddered in horror at the thought.

"What did you say?" A burly blacksmith, beard singed and sooty, asked.

"We disrespectfully declined," Daín replied with an impish smile. A cheer rose from all sides of the table.

"But the work begins here," Dwalin boomed over them. "We must be ready for war."

"We are! Always!" The one-eyed general retorted.

"See that you are," Dwalin replied. "Evacuation drills should be run weekly, not monthly, from now on, until the threat has passed. And no caravan leaves Erebor without a double guard," he added.

"But," the wealthy merchant protested, "that will greatly limit the number of caravans we can send out - our profits will crash!"

"Better to tighten our belts now than count our dead," Dwalin replied, hard-eyed. "Hod," he addressed the blacksmith while the merchant glowered. "Black arrows. Can you make them?"

Hod's shoulders slumped. "I suppose," he mumbled. "It's not been done in centuries, but we have the materials…"

"Get it done," Dwalin told him. "And start forging weapons. Swords, axes, hammers. One of each for every pair of arms in Erebor, and that includes children. I want them ready within a month."

"Captain Dwalin, Sir," another blacksmith spoke up nervously, "that'd be pushing the forges to their limits."

"Then push them!" Dwalin shouted, making the blacksmiths jump slightly. The old soldier was pacing the room furiously, rubbing his bald head in frustration. "Do none of you realise what's just happened?" He announced to the room. "Sauron has arrived at our doorstep, with a declaration of war! We do this now, or Erebor is lost."

"With all due respect, _Captain_ ," the one-eyed general said, "I'd like to hear these words from the King." All eyes slowly turned to Daín, sitting in his throne with fingers steepled to his nose. The silence in the room as they waited for him to speak was absolute. At length, he leaned forward.

"Everyone out," he said. A wave of confusion rippled around his subjects. A few gave awkward smiles, unsure if Daín was serious. "Now?" Daín asked forcefully, his blue eyes glistening with quiet fury. With a clattering of chair-legs and bustling of feet, the doors were unbarred and the group began to leave. "Not you, Dwalin," Daín said. Dwalin closed his eyes slowly. He knew well when his old friend was angry, and he could feel the heat pouring off of him from across the room. He let the generals and merchants sidle past him and out of the room, escorted by the soldiers who'd guarded the doors, before closing the doors behind them and locking himself and Daín in.

"Your Majesty," Dwalin began as he turned around.

"That's right," Daín replied. "I am." The old friends locked eyes. Daín sat, seething, in his seat carved to resemble a throne. "I am your King. Not just yours, but theirs, also," he said, pointing to the door and the Dwarves that lay beyond it. Daín stood and leaned forward, fat old hands spread on the polished wood. "Don't you ever - ever! - talk for me like that again," he barked. Dwalin bowed his head, conflicted. Daín had a point, but such an outburst of megolomania was uncharacteristic from this avuncular, approachable King.

"I beg your pardon, Sire," Dwalin replied sincerely. "I forgot myself."

Daín let out a long breath before nodding shortly, sitting back down. An ill feeling still hung in the room like a bad smell.

"What are your orders, Sire?" Dwalin asked. "What do we do now?"

"Nothing," Daín replied quietly.

"Very good," Dwalin said, turning to leave before halting in his tracks. "Nothing?" He repeated, turning back on the spot. "Are you-" A dangerous eye from Daín silenced his captain. The King was still in no mood to be spoken down to. Dwalin swallowed and tried again. "With all due respect, Sire," he said, "we are facing war."

"We are Dwarves," Daín replied, shaking the lapels of his fur robe, rattling his chains. "War is what we do."

"Not this war," Dwalin replied, shaking his head. "Sire, you know your history. You know what Sauron brought to bear against Middle-Earth the last time he took power. You know what it took to stop him."

"Ah, yes, the Last Alliance of Men and Elves," Daín said. "What word d'you see missing from that title?" Daín stood from his throne, facing off with his friend. "Dwarves! The last time Sauron's horde came to Erebor, we watered the ground with their blood!"

"It wasn't just Dwarves who fought that day," Dwalin said, frustrated, circling the table to stand closer to the King. "There were Elves, Men, wizards, eagles, Beorn - even Bilbo. A bloody Hobbit!" He blurted in exasperation.

"Aye, and they were useless, weren't they?" Daín replied derisively. Dwalin almost gasped in shock to hear his King run down the heroes of Five Armies so callously. "Ach, I'm so bloody sick of everyone talking about that battle," he huffed, pulling his crown off and rubbing his thinning pate. "Fuckin' Elves nearly cost us the whole thing. D'you not remember how they jumped over our line, just so they could be the first to stick it to the orcs? That entire army would've been jam if they'd let them hit our shields! Whole thing went to shite from that moment," he grumbled, putting his crown back on.

"I can't believe you…" Dwalin mumbled, lost for words.

"Oh, come on, Dwalin," Daín retorted. "You're not some axe-dropper, wet behind the ears, barely out of your sixties. You know as well as I do that that battle was a write-off. But if they want to come back here and face a _real_ Dwarven army, if they want to face the full might of Erebor, then I say let them! They could throw a hundred thousand bodies at our stone, and have nothing to show for it but corpses."

"Daín," Dwalin said quietly, moving closer to the King. "Sauron offered us the Rings of Power in exchange for a promise. The Rings that built Moria, Gundabad...Erebor," he said, gesturing about him. "He's not just keeping a weather eye open for his Ring. He will tear the world apart to find it. What he sends against us will make Azog's horde look like scouts. You've heard the stories, I know you have," Dwalin continued, moving until his face was just inches from Daín's, "of the horrors and monsters from the East. Would you really risk the fate of every Dwarf in Erebor for your...arrogance?"

Daín's nose wrinkled in fury. "Every last one," he shot back, before pushing past Dwalin and throwing the doors open with an echoing boom.

Dwalin left the room slowly, watching with regret and bitterness as Daín stormed back to his quarters unescorted, fur robe swishing and jewellery glinting in the torchlight. A hurried clanking grew behind him before stopping and puffing hard.

"The King, Sir!" Harod said breathlessly. "He's unguarded!"

"Let him go, son," Dwalin murmured. "We all need to be alone some time." Harod nodded and straightened up, still breathing hard.

"Is everything alright, Captain?" Harod asked. Dwalin walked away in silence. He had known a previous king of Erebor like Daín.


	6. Outside Help

Dwalin couldn't sleep. His and Dáin's meeting with the Mouth of Sauron, and their subsequent argument, weighed heavily on his mind, robbing him of rest as he became a slave to his own soldier's mind - forever seeking out the direst consequences, attracted to the worst-case scenario. The prospect of Mordor's armies marching on Erebor made his blood run cold, but it didn't scare him half as much as the idea of Dáin, in his arrogance and pride, sealing their doom by refusing to take the threat seriously. His kingship had seen Erebor's army swell, its soldiers armed with and encased in thick Dwarven steel, and its defenses multiply until they bristled along the walls like the quills of a porcupine, but even they wouldn't stand a chance against the full might of the Dark Lord.

As he walked the front walls alone, Dwalin recalled with a shudder the stories his father had told him and Balin when they were boys. Of the end of the Second Age and Sauron's last Dominion; of the sacrifices of Numenor and the Noldor, leaving their greatest warriors dead on the field in unimaginable number before Isildur - more by luck than judgement - cut the ring from Sauron's hand. Hearing his father describe the Dead Marshes, where the bodies of Elves and Men had lain, unrotted, for three thousand years, had terrified the young Dwalin out of his wits. He recalled Balin chasing him through the house, pretending to be an undead Elf. For all the terror it brought him then, Dwalin chuckled as he remembered their youthful hijinks. The moment of levity passed and, as the wind rose, Dwalin was once again gripped by cold fear.

He had known Dáin long enough to know that changing his mind was like pulling teeth. He leaned against the parapets and thought, formulating arguments he could use to convince Dáin that Erebor needed to prepare for all-out war. One by one he weighed their merits and discarded them, letting out a cry of disgust as he realised he had no ideas left. Dáin was as immovable as the Mountain he ruled under.

As he seethed, the flickering of torches from the walls of Dale caught his eye. Watching them dance, the germ of an idea grew in Dwalin's mind. It was a slim hope, but he clung to it.

* * *

"I'd give that ten minutes, if I were you," Dáin mumbled as he emerged from his restroom, adjusting his belt. His adjutant, a spectacularly-bearded middle-aged Dwarf in expensive lavender robes, smiled obsequiously.

"Quite, Sire," he replied.

"What's the plan for today, Morn?" Dáin asked as the two of them descended a carved stone staircase into the throne room and walked briskly down it.

"A Mister Grimm from Dale, something of a magnate in fishing, wants to talk about expanding into Erebor," Morn replied, pulling a notebook from his pocket.

"Delegate it," Dáin replied immediately. His adjutant scribbled furiously.

"You're opening the new mine in the north of the mountain at half past two," he continued.

"Ach, do I have to?" Dáin grumbled.

"Yes. You're meeting the engineers at four to discuss the jacuzzi…"

"Very important, that," Dáin replied.

"Indeed, Sire," Morn replied drolly. "Lady Nîn expects you to get back to her immediately about her recent letter."

"Take this down: No, yes, yes, no, yes dear, blue in the bathroom and green in the dining room, no, yes, he's been dead for eight years. Lots of love, et cetera."

"As you say, Sire," Morn replied, having taken Dáin's dictation down without missing a beat. He stopped short as they reached the throne. "And finally, Captain Dwalin would like to talk to you, and I don't think he's very happy."

"Why do you say that?" Dáin asked, sitting down.

"Because he's over there," Morn replied, pointing to Dáin's right. Dwalin stood to attention, chest broad and face hard. The two old friends shared an intense look.

"Thank you, Morn," Dáin said, not breaking his gaze. As Morn trotted back the way he came, Dwalin moved in front of Dáin's throne. The silence between them stretched out longer until, finally, Dwalin took a knee.

"Your Majesty," he greeted Dáin. "I'd like to apologise for my conduct towards you yesterday. It was unbecoming." Dáin's hard face softened minutely.

"Your apology is accepted," he said. "But I hope you're not about to waste your time, and mine, again."

"No, Sire," Dwalin replied, standing. "You've made your position very clear, and I respect that. But we have more than Erebor to think about." Dáin sat back in his throne, clasping his hands together and nodding for Dwalin to continue. "We must warn Dale."

"Warn them?" Dáin replied. "Of what? An army which might come, someday, maybe? We're not babysitters."

"Of Sauron's attempts at bribery," Dwalin replied. "Who knows what he might offer those fishermen? How far do you trust King Brand, Sire?" Dwalin asked quietly, taking a step closer. Dáin bristled.

"Brand is a man of honour," he retorted. "A warrior, and a leader. But…" he trailed off. Dwalin suppressed a smile. He could see the wheels turning. "That council of his...they're powerful. Rich, and powerful."

"Imagine if Sauron offered the Rings to Dale instead," Dwalin whispered. "Brand might have the strength to refuse. But what of his advisors? You know how easily the hearts of Men are corrupted. They could offer Sauron a foothold in the North on a silver platter."

Dáin sighed and stroked his beard thoughtfully. "What do you suggest, Captain?" He asked.

"Share our information with King Brand," he replied. "Let him know that Sauron will attempt to treat with him. And then let Brand...deal with those he suspects would betray him." Dáin nodded slowly, then beckoned Dwalin closer with a finger.

"Do not mention the Rings," Dáin whispered, eyes darting left and right. "No Man is above that temptation. Not even a King."

"Aye, Sir," Dwalin replied quietly. Inside, he was cheering. His plan to save Dáin from himself was on.

* * *

Within the hour, a pony was fed, watered and saddled for Dwalin. A messenger bird was sent out ahead of him, letting Dale know to expect a Dwarvish dignitary. As the mighty inner doors of Erebor were opened to the world, Harod led Dwalin's pony over to him.

"Here you are, Sir," Harod said as Dwalin, wrapped in a huge fur coat, stroked the pony's ears. "Bessie's a good girl. Doesn't mind the cold at all."

"You like ponies, Harod?" Dwalin asked. The young Dwarf blushed.

"I...grew up with them, Sir," he replied. "Always had a bit of a connection with them, I guess." Dwalin smiled warmly.

"It's good," he said, brushing Bessie's mane. "World needs pony lovers." Harod laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head. Dwalin mounted Bessie and patted her neck.

"Where are you taking her, Sir?" Harod asked.

"Dale," Dwalin replied. "Shan't be gone long." Harod's eyes opened widely.

"Is this about themselves who turned up yesterday?" He asked quietly. Dwalin gave him a stern look.

"Remember the first rule of being a soldier, Harod?" He asked.

"Be ready, Sir!" Harod replied.

"Well the second," Dwalin replied, "is, don't ask questions." He inclined his head suggestively. Harod cleared his throat, embarrassed.

"Yes, Sir," he said, standing back and saluting Dwalin as he left the Lonely Mountain.

Bessie was as hardy and helpful a companion as Harod had promised, ploughing through ankle-deep snow as though it were spring grass to deliver Dwalin at the gates of Dale within just a few minutes - far shorter than it took the guards to finally admit Dwalin, double- and triple-checking his papers and their Royal Seal. The good mood the Dwarf had started his journey in had entirely evaporated by the time the gates were opened, and he shot poisonous looks at each of the obstructive guards as he passed. Despite everything which Dale and Erebor had experienced together, Men still viewed Dwarves - Dwarves not bearing gold or treasures, at any rate - with distrust.

The streets of Dale were empty but for a few hardy souls hauling carts of refuse out of the city, noses dripping and breath misting in the frozen air. Winter's teeth sank deep here, and some likened the city to a bear, retreating away from the worst of the cold, warm in its den and fat from its summer glut. Inquisitive eyes peered from shuttered windows as Dwalin made his way up the hill to the palace, wondering what a well-dressed Dwarf was doing on his way to see the King. The guards there were no more forthcoming than those at the gate, as he was once more forced to wait as they went back and forth to the palace to fetch a seemingly endless procession of officials to verify Dwalin's documents, none of them apparently _quite_ senior enough.

"I'm very sorry about this, Mister, er," a fat-faced clerk muttered as he cast an eye over the Dwarf's papers, "Dway-lin, but in Dale we don't let just anyone see the King, you know." Dwalin ground his teeth as papers rustled and ruffled between gloved hands.

"We sent a raven," he replied as calmly as he could. "Sure you didn't eat it?" The clerk's mouth dropped slowly open in shock and seemed ready to banish Dwalin from the grounds altogether, before an armoured guard, a bald, grizzled Man of at least sixty, emerged from the palace and called his name.

"Bring the Dwarf in immediately!" He shouted angrily. The clerk's jowls wobbled as his head spun back and forth between Dwalin and the guard, redness growing in his plump cheeks.

"Let him through!" He blustered to the guards at the gate before trudging back through the thin crust of snow which had fallen on the courtyard in the time Dwalin had been waiting, scowling at the guard as he passed him. Dwalin took his papers from the bemused guards roughly and ordered them to tend to Bessie as he walked to the palace unaccompanied.

"Sorry about that, Dwalin," the armoured guard muttered as the Dwarf clasped his proffered hand. "Bunch of pissing bureaucrats around here, you can't so much as fart without getting someone's signature first."

"Appreciate it, Tam," Dwalin said, following his host inside the palace, where a wave of warmth washed over him and made his fur coat feel almost immediately suffocating. "What happened to the bird we sent?"

"Came straight to us, as normal," Tam replied, helping Dwalin with his coat. "I sent someone to deliver the message, but…" The old man grumbled. Some Dale officials would take any opportunity to power-play with Erebor. "Looked out the window, saw you freezing your arse off, and I put two and two together." Dwalin smirked. "Your message didn't say why you wanted to see the King, though," Tam said nonchalantly as he passed Dwalin's coat to a servant. Dwalin chuckled softly. He knew all the old tricks - and he knew Tam knew them, too.

"Had Brand's name on it, didn't it?" Dwalin replied. "Not Tam's." The two old soldiers shared a knowing look and laughed.

"The King's tied up in something right now," Tam said. "I've a firkin of Hobbiton ale upstairs, care to join me?" Dwalin accepted gratefully and followed Tam up to his office, not noticing the callow youth watching him with suspicious eyes from down the corridor.

* * *

Within half an hour Dwalin and Tam had taken a respectable amount out of the barrel and chewed a few years' worth of fat.

"Whatever happened to Bram?" Dwalin asked, pouring Tam a fifth pint. The Men of Dale were proud of their ability to hold their beer; if your city was as cold as Dale, Dwalin reasoned, you'd probably need a stiff drink on the hour.

"Ah, his knee went," Tam replied, raising his mug to salute his fallen comrade before taking a swig. "Took early retirement. Works with the fish for a living now. Moved down to Esgaroth, haven't seen him in a while."

"Shame," Dwalin mused. "Good soldier."

"Aye," Tam agreed. In the candlelight, Dwalin saw the extent of the lines on Tam's weathered face; pitted and cratered like the surface of the moon, it was a face born of hardship and bitter winds.

"Are you thinking of doing the same soon?" Dwalin asked, immediately knowing the answer.

"You'll have to put me under my pile of stones before I give up this life," Tam replied. "Don't know nothing else. Plus, I'm still of use. You taught me well enough," he smiled, revealing a mouthful of broken teeth. Dwalin and Tam clinked glasses and drained their drinks. As their set their mugs down, a young servant in fine livery appeared at Tam's door.

"Sir Dwalin," he said in a gentle, sing-song voice, "the King is ready to see you now." Dwalin nodded and brushed the spattered beer from his jerkin, belching loudly.

"Right," he mumbled as Tam stood to see him out. "Pleasure seeing you again, Tam."

"Likewise," the old soldier replied, parting with a handshake. The servant led Dwalin down a maze of corridors adorned with art, at a pace which could charitably be described as leisurely. After the third headless statue, Dwalin was convinced he was being led in circles. At great length, the servant brought him to a large oak door flanked by guards. A protracted ceremony took place whereby the servant announced Dwalin's name to the guard, who knocked on the door and waited for the King to acknowledge it. Dwalin pinched the bridge of his nose as they went through their rigamarole. He had forgotten how much Men loved their pomp. A full hour and a half after he had reached the gates of Dale, the door swung open and Dwalin was finally in the presence of King Brand.

Brand's private study was significantly less ornate than Dwalin had supposed. The King of Dale was a practical man, and his sanctum was dedicated to comfort and solitude more than celebration of his position; a well-stocked wine cabinet stood in the corner, and a pair of large wingback chairs on a bear pelt were turned towards the fire roaring in the grate. The sole concession to the grandeur and artistry seen elsewhere in the palace was a large painting of King Bard above the fireplace, opposite the paper-strewn desk where Brand sat.

"Captain Dwalin," Brand addressed his visitor. Dwalin instinctively took a knee, bowing his head to the floor. Brand stood and crossed to Dwalin, offering his hand. Dwalin kissed the ring on Brand's finger and was bidden to rise. Formalities over, the friends greeted each other with a two-handed handshake. "Hope Tam took care of you."

"Filled my belly well enough," Dwalin replied. "He grew up well. Far cry from the lad who didn't know which end of the sword to hold."

Brand chuckled. "What brings you here on such short notice?"

Dwalin smiled and turned his head around. "How thick is that door?"

Brand's smile flickered. "I might have guessed this wasn't a social call," he replied, gesturing for Dwalin to sit in one of the chairs by the fire and opening a secret compartment at the foot of his desk. " _Captain Dwalin of the Royal Guard of Erebor requests and requires private audience with King Brand as a matter of immediate urgency_ ," he recited the Dwarves' raven-borne message as he rummaged in the cavity. " _No guards_." Dwalin smiled sardonically. At least now he knew why he'd been searched and delayed so thoroughly on his way into this chamber. "That's not the kind of message you send when you want to talk about the weather."

"Awful, isn't it?" Dwalin said.

"Try living on a hill in it," Brand retorted as he withdrew a dusty, half-empty bottle from the secret compartment. "Anything that would make a Dwarf come to Men for help," Brand said, uncorking the bottle and retrieving a pair of cups from the wine cabinet, "needs brandy." Dwalin accepted a cup and Brand poured them both out a small tot. It stung the nostrils; a far cry from the finery and sophistication Dale knew now. It was a smell from across the years, dirty and desperate. Beggar's ruin. "Your health," Brand toasted his guest before both of them threw their drinks down the hatch.

"Nice," Dwalin croaked between coughs. Brand, wincing, nodded in agreement.

"It was granda's," Brand replied, his voice a touch harsher than before. "Used to have a sideline in distillery, back when nanna was expecting her first - my aunt Sigrid, rest may her soul. He said that that first year, their house floated in moonshine."

"That explains the taste," Dwalin quipped, suppressing a cough. Brand laughed throatily.

"People took what they could get back then," he replied. "He was quite in demand, actually. It was the only drink in Lake-Town that never made anyone go blind."

"Hardly a glowing recommendation," Dwalin said.

"You joking? It was his slogan!" Brand replied, laughing as he thrust the bottle under Dwalin's nose. _Lake-Town Brandy_ , the faded ink on the peeling label read above a crude woodcut stamp of a barge. _Never Knowingly Blinded Anyone,_ it boasted beneath it. With six pints and a tot of rotgut in him, Dwalin couldn't help but snort. "It couldn't last, of course," Brand continued once the laughter subsided. "The Master eventually caught on and smashed his still. Cost him nearly every bottle he had left to keep him out of the cells." Dwalin scowled. The fact that the Master, who'd used Dwalin and his friends so callously for his own ends during their quest, had ended up crushed beneath Smaug as the dragon fell felt entirely too gentle an ending for him. "That was a cold winter too," Brand said, more quietly, as he stared into the flickering fire. Dwalin felt the King's mood sour. "Nanna was with child again. Granda did all he could to keep her and baby warm. Friends shared all the fuel they could, but it wasn't enough. Gave her his coat, his clothes...he lived off the last of his brandy to keep warm. All for nothing," Brand sighed. "Cold took her. Baby too. Granda himself nearly died, as well."

"I'm sorry, Brand," Dwalin muttered, shaking his head. Brand smiled sadly and waved his hand.

"Don't know why it gets at me so," he replied with a shaky laugh. "I never knew her, obviously. But...the way granda would look when he recalled her," he said, looking up at the portrait of Bard in regal splendour, "as if someone had sucked all the life out of him. It's why I keep this here," he explained, raising his empty glass to the painting. "This is him on the tenth anniversary of his kingship. It's how I like to remember him. How I need to remember him. You understand me?"

"Aye, I do," Dwalin said thoughtfully.

"So, with that said," Brand said, setting his glass down on the small table between them, "rest assured that any words said in this room never leave it. My walls are stone and my door is thick."

Dwalin smiled. He appreciated the gesture. "Sauron came to treat with us yesterday," he said. If Brand was surprised, he didn't show it. The King's face remained a mask of polite intrigue. "His catspaw, anyway. He wanted our help in looking for the One Ring." At this, Brand's face finally betrayed emotion, an almost imperceptible widening of the eyes. "We refused," he added, almost as an afterthought.

"I see," Brand muttered, stroking his bearded chin. "What did he offer in return?" Dwalin's face betrayed nothing.

"He offered nothing," he replied. "He threatened our destruction if we did not accept." Brand snorted.

"I don't think the Dark Lord can have met many Dwarves," he quipped, uncorking the bottle and pouring himself another measure. He offered the bottle to Dwalin, who nodded, and poured him one out too.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you what happens next," Dwalin said, taking his glass. Brand nodded sombrely.

"He will be preparing to attack," Brand replied. "And a threat to Erebor is a threat to Dale. What preparations has Dáin ordered?"

Dwalin's words froze in his chest. Here was the crux of his purpose; but as the moment came, he suddenly found himself gripped by shame, unable to see it through. Putting his cup down, Dwalin buried his head in his hands.

"Dwalin?" Brand asked, setting his cup down as well. Clenching his fists Dwalin turned and spat it out.

"He's ordered nothing," he growled. "He refuses to see the danger Erebor is in. He's convinced we can withstand an assault of any magnitude, but…" Brand pinched the bridge of his nose as Dwalin spoke. "He does not know what awaits us, should Sauron march on the North. A war unlike any seen in an Age."

"Damn that stubborn old bastard," Brand spat, slapping the arm of his chair in frustration. "What madness has worked its way into his heart?"

"The madness of Erebor," Dwalin replied. "Dragon-sickness. It lingers. Wherever there is gold, it will be there. I saw it once before," Dwalin said sadly, his mind reaching back to his dear departed friend, at the peak of his lunacy, threatening to kill him. "With Thorin, it brought greed; with Dáin, it's brought pride. Dáin was always the sort who could be standing nose-to-nose with the Reaper and give himself fifty-fifty, but now...he's delusional. Demented."

Brand sighed and rubbed his face roughly. "And so this is why you've come to me," he said. "To talk some sense into him." Dwalin laughed mirthlessly.

"No-one alive could talk sense into Dáin right now," he replied. "But his hubris can be used against him." He leaned over the arm of his chair, as though suspecting the walls themselves could hear his words. "Make a show of strength. Increase your guard at the walls. Bring out the big lads. Dáin can't resist a challenge. And, maybe it'll make Sauron think twice before approaching you."

Brand nodded slowly. "I'll take it under advisement," he replied. Even here in his sanctuary, Dwalin thought, Brand played the consummate statesman; evasive and careful. The two raised their glasses once more and sealed their secret pact with another mouthful of Bard's century-old brandy.

* * *

The bottle went back into its secret compartment unemptied. Dwalin had excused himself after a third glass, fearing any more would see him drive Bessie off the edge of a cliff. Alone again, Brand blinked rapidly into the flickering fire, trying to dispel the fuzziness encroaching on his vision. A rapid knock made him swear silently.

"Come," he called out, trying his best to look presentable. The heavy door swung open, and Bard stood in the doorway, hands folded behind his back. Brand sighed heavily.

"Evening, son," he greeted him. "What can I do for you?"

"Were you just meeting with a Dwarf? Alone?" Bard asked. Brand's face crumbled into a grimace of annoyance.

"Oh, for-get in here!" He grumbled, gripping the boy's shoulder and pulling him inside the room, shutting the door behind him. "Would you like to say that a little louder, Bard? I think there's fishermen on the Lake who couldn't quite hear you!"

"There's no-one out there but guards," Bard complained.

"And where do you think people get information from, hm?" Brand asked him quietly, his eyes hard and serious. "Not everyone's a paragon of integrity, boy. Enough gold will turn any man's head. You're going to have to learn that." Bard rolled his eyes sullenly. "What interest is it of to you, anyway?"

"Oh, I don't know," Bard replied sarcastically, "I'm only going to be King one day, don't you think I should know what's going on?"

Bard's chest swelled in anger, before relaxing abruptly. The boy had a point. He would have to share the information - or, at least, a bowdlerised version - with his generals eventually, and including his heir in the process might teach him a thing or two about leadership. Brand laid a heavy arm around Bard's shoulders and led him further into the room.

"That was Captain Dwalin of Erebor," he explained. "Don't let the title fool you; he's the head of the Royal Guard, which makes him more or less the head of the army, after Dáin. We discussed many things, but the upshot of them is this: an attack on the North is imminent."

Bard's eyes widened. "From whom?" He asked, spinning out of his father's grasp to look him in the face. Brand hesitated. He immediately regretted telling him anything; in his dismay, his son still looked every inch the child he had sent away to Gondor years ago.

"Orcs," he replied, as convincingly as he could muster. "Trolls. Goblins. The usual rabble," he said with the flash of a cajoling smile. "But an army of them. Driven and purposeful."

"How long do we have?" Bard asked. Brand, through his stress and strain, felt a strain of pride for his son's initiative.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Weeks, months...could be years, but it will come. What's important is that we make sure we are ready for it, and I want you to help me." He laid his hand on Bard's shoulder as his son's face lit up.

"Of course, Father! It would be my honour," Bard replied. "Where are they? When do I leave?" Brand's brow furrowed in confusion

"I...I'm not sure what you mean, son," he said. "Where are who?"

"The enemy," Bard replied. "For our pre-emptive strike." Brand shook his head.

"No, no, no," he said, "no pre-emptive strike. We're not going to put anyone at needless risk."

"The existence of an army that means to march on us is a challenge to our authority," Bard insisted, standing as straight as he could to meet his father's gaze. "We must destroy it."

Brand laughed, without meaning to. "I think you're getting ahead of yourself a little there, Bard," he replied. His son took the slight poorly.

"Getting ahead of myself?" He replied, incredulously. "How is seeking glory and honour for my city, my father, my King-"

"Glory?" Brand asked. "You think this is about glory? War is about survival, boy; I'm not about to throw my soldiers and my son away on some kind of-"

"What would you have us do? Cower behind our walls like women?" Bard interrupted petulantly. Brand's lips tightened, his patience being tested.

"I would have us drill the army, recruit more soldiers, improve our defenses, train levies - all things which will increase our chances of winning a war without risking lives," Brand replied. Bard scoffed. "All of these things, you will have a hand in. You'll see first-hand how a war is prepared for and won."

"What would you know," Bard mumbled, turning his back on his father and staring into the fire, cross-armed. Brand's stomach felt like lead.

"Excuse me?" He asked. He got silence. "I said, excuse me?" He asked, raising his voice.

"I said, what would you know about winning a war?" Bard retorted loudly, turning on his heels. "You've never fought in one!"

"And you have?" Brand shot back. "I am a king and the son of kings. My entire life has been in preparation for this moment."

"As has mine!" Bard shouted, stiffening his father's back with his fury. "Isn't that why you sent me away? I grew up without you, without mother, all so I could be your perfect little soldier."

"I sent you to Gondor," Brand seethed, closing the gap between himself and his son, "as my father sent me, to learn to be a king! Not a warmonger!" Father and son's eyes locked, noses just inches apart as both breathed heavily. "Damn that old tyrant," Brand hissed. "He's gotten to you. Right here," he said, jabbing a finger into Bard's forehead before wheeling away, furious, and leaning heavily on his desk.

"We survived Five Armies," Bard said tremulously, his bravado rocked by his father's overwhelming presence. "With an army of peasants and a ruined city. Now, we are Dale. We are the mightest realm of Men in the North. There may be an army, but there is no threat."

Brand sighed heavily, defeated. "You know what he used to say?" he asked Bard, turning and pointing to the portrait of his son's namesake hanging above him. "People used to ask him the same thing - how did you do it? How did you win a battle without soldiers? He said he had something better than soldiers. He had heroes," Brand said with a sad smile. "Ordinary men and women, pushed to the point of desperation, beating back the armies of darkness with pitchforks and sickles. Now I face my own great battle, and I think...where will I find heroes? Where will they come from? You?" He asked dismissively, scoffing with disgust and slowly walking around his desk to sit heavily in his chair.

The silence weighed heavily. Bard's hand reached out instinctively, reaching out to his father across the gulf that had been furrowed between them. His father, head bowed, did not see him. With nothing left to say, Bard slunk out of the room, the door closing with a deep thump. The guards outside saluted him. He inclined his head, but caught in the eye of one of them the unmistakable look of discomfort; of one who knows more than he wished. With a growing sickness in his stomach, Bard left his father alone.


	7. Into The East

**Well, it's been a while since we revisited Tauriel and her mission. Life has, as it does, gotten in the way (this time in the form of my impending marriage, so, swings and roundabouts). I hope you continue to enjoy it.**

 **Phil**

* * *

Dwarves milled around Tauriel, single-minded, as all hands loaded the waiting wagons. "Come on!" The driver called out, his harsh voice almost a beery belch. "I want to get to the gully before nightfall!"

"Yes, boss!" The Dwarves cried out in unison, moving double-time between the wagons and the pile of crates, chests and casks which dominated most of the main concourse of Grom, the carven city of the Iron Hills. Tauriel had spent close to a month here now, doing her best to fulfill Thranduil's wishes to learn of Sauron's designs on the North but living, metaphorically, on scraps; the Dwarves of the Iron Hills were not nearly as forthcoming and friendly as their cousins in Erebor. Any secrets they held about the lands beyond the hills were locked away as if behind mithril. Now, however, her chance to learn had finally come.

"The she-Elf is making you look stupid," the driver taunted his crew. Tauriel, even with both shoulders laden with boxes of merchandise, could feel their poisonous stares. "Are you going to allow that?"

"No, boss!" The Dwarves roared, moving with unnerving speed to load the last of their cargo.

The first few days in the Iron Hills had been a rough welcome for Tauriel. Much to her chagrin she realised she had become accustomed, blase even, to her celebrity status in Erebor, which was more and more resembling the odd cousin of the Dwarvish family. Welcoming, metropolitan and luxurious, it was everything Grom was not. Here, the old ways of the Dwarves held as firm as the white tops of the mountains; secrecy and mistrust ruled, and more than one door had been slammed in her face in her time here. Here, Dwarves spoke openly in Khuzdul, with many incapable of speaking a word of the Common Tongue. Tauriel had previously been proud of her ability - the first of any Elf to have ever lived - to understand Khuzdul well enough to eavesdrop, but here it was more of a curse than a blessing. She may not have learned anything of Sauron's inevitable assault, but her understanding of Dwarvish terms for reproductive organs had come on leaps and bounds.

With the wagons fully loaded, the Dwarves stopped to flex, gloat and high-five each other. They studiously ignored Tauriel, sidling around her as though she were a column. "Right!" The driver called out, tossing an empty bottle of beer to the ground and opening another with his teeth. "All aboard, you loathsome ingrates!" As the Dwarves leapt on board the wagons, some diving inside and some clinging to the the walls, Tauriel was stopped in her attempts to board by a harsh whistle from the driver. "Not you, long-legs," he called out. "You're up front. Need those Elf-eyes up here." Tauriel, bristling, leapt up to the driver's seat in a single bound and sat cross-legged on the roof of the lead wagon. The mighty gates were opened onto a bright, cold morning, mercifully free from snow.

Under other circumstances, she might have been thrilled to take part in a tradition of long standing but rarely glimpsed by outsiders; a Dwarvish wagon train, heading out into the blank parchment of Middle Earth's atlas to trade with the strange peoples who lived there. Behind Tauriel, seven other wagons, each thirty feet long and almost half as tall and wide, were hitched together, bursting at the seams with finery from the seven realms of the Dwarves. Scouts in light armour and bows sat atop each one, whispering prayers of protection to Aule. To many Dwarves, this was still the ultimate danger - a plunge into the savage East.

"Six days until we reach Astǎr," the driver said to Tauriel, "and that's if we have luck on our side. Could be two weeks or more if we run into trouble."

"Then let us hope," Tauriel replied, "we do not."

The driver, an elderly Dwarf with a nose the size of Tauriel's hand and eyes hard as flint, regarded her without amusement. "You've no idea what you're getting yourself into, girl," he muttered to her, to Tauriel's barely-restrained fury. "I've been doing this run a hundred and twenty years. You know how many Dwarves I've seen die on the Sand Road?"

"Well, as I'm not a Dwarf, you should have no such worries for me," Tauriel replied.

"Orcs," the driver continued, as though Tauriel hadn't spoken at all. "Easterlings. Haradrim. And worse," he intoned darkly, his eyes briefly focusing on some point in the distance, as though hellish war-cries rung in his ears from across the years. "I don't know what strings you pulled to earn that seat, but this isn't a pleasure tour. The work starts here."

"Then let's work," Tauriel replied, staring the driver down. With a twitch of his drooping silver moustache, the driver settled into his seat and unfurled his whip, cracking it with a sound like thunder over the backs of the dozen oxen before him.

"Onwards!" He bellowed. "Onwards and away!"

The epic scenery of the Iron Hills, the endless grassland and wide horizons, fell away more quickly than Tauriel expected. Lush grasses turned patchy, the boundless verdure turning to islands of green amid a sea of dull ochre. By the time the sun had slipped from its perch and set the sky behind them ablaze with red and gold, they were surrounded by an ocean of sand. Tauriel's relief slapped her on the shoulder roughly, and she ducked inside the wagon with an aggrieved sigh. It had been an uneventful first day's journey, but listening to the driver's drunken ramblings about Elves and his speculation as to what they got up to in "their little forest love-nests" had tested Tauriel's patience, and bow-arm, to the very limit.

Dwarves gave her a wide berth as she hopped between wagons to the sleeping quarters at the back. Hammocks hung left to right and front to back like the webs of the spiders of Mirkwood, most holding a snoozing Dwarf. No concession or favour had been made for Tauriel; if she wanted a part on this journey, she had been told, she did the same work, ate the same food, and slept in the same beds as the Dwarves. Tauriel made her way to the back of the wagon, where a half-dozen ravens flapped and cawed in a wooden cage. She pulled a scrap of paper from her pocket and began to write.

 _My Lord_ , it began. _I am at last on my way to Astǎr and the East._ Tauriel imagined that would please Thranduil. Her weekly mission updates had become increasingly desperate, and his responses increasingly despairing. _After Gráin would not aid us in reaching Rhun, I have been forced to join a Dwarven wagon train on a trading mission._

Gráin, brother of Dáin and Lord Steward of the Iron Hills, had been opposed to Tauriel's presence since the moment she walked through the gates of Grom. If Dáin, with his flamboyance and charm, summed up the spirit of Erebor, then his surly younger brother did much the same for the Iron Hills; petty and unimaginative, he seemed fully aware that he had been promoted far above his abilities, and dedicated his every waking moment to making sure those immediately below him resented having him for a commander as much as he resented doing it.

"The Iron Hills are not Thranduil's staging inn," he'd spat at Tauriel from his rough-hewn throne as she knelt before him, little more than an hour after she had arrived. "I will not risk Dwarf blood to get one pointy-ear across the sand. Tell your master, if he's so keen to learn of the East, he can go there himself."

"My Lord," Tauriel argued, "without the aid of your navigators my journey will be so dangerous as to-."

"Let me tell you a secret, child," Gráin interrupted softly. Tauriel felt blood rush to her cheeks at his rudeness. "This is the East. It's always dangerous."

 _It will take some days, if not weeks, until we are safely -_ she used the word as loosely as possible - _within the limits of Astǎr. Expect a raven before the next moon. Your servant, Tauriel._

Tauriel opened the cage and grabbed a raven with two missing talons - this one, she was told, took messages directly to Erebor. From there, her message would be passed on to Mirkwood. The thought of how anyone in Grom would react to seeing Tengwar on their ravens filled her with dread. Rolling her missive into a silver tube, she hooked it to the raven's leg and released him from the window, his black wings quickly disappearing into the encroaching night.

That done, Tauriel found a free hammock and hopped in, immediately frowning at the coarseness of its ropes. Despite the heat of the night and the stench of the Dwarves, the rocking of the caravan proved enough to send her into a deep and dreamless sleep.

* * *

The cold continued to bite Dale hard. Even swaddled in an ermine cloak, Brand clenched his fists to suppress a shiver as the wind hissed through him. The troops he was inspecting did less well at hiding their discomfort.

"You call yourselves soldiers?" A burly sergeant bellowed at them. "The King himself comes to inspect you and you flinch at the breeze? Are you Men of Dale, or Hobbits?" His haranguing stiffened the platoon's resolve, and they stood to attention with a massed stomp of feet.

"Men of Dale, Sir!" Came their thunderous reply. Brand smirked. His people were rightly proud of their home, and would answer any challenge to its pre-eminence. Thus it came as no surprise that, when the call for volunteers to man the walls came up, nearly every man under sixty with all his limbs - and a great deal of those who were neither - put his name forward.

"You see, Sire," the sergeant remarked off-handedly, "just shout loud enough and they'll do whatever you say. All you really want from men-at-arms." Brand smiled placidly.

"I'm sure a sergeant asks no more of his men than that," he replied, patting the sergeant's shoulder and walking past him. The sergeant's fat, ruddy face crumpled in confusion as he tried to work out if he'd just been insulted. "Thank you all for volunteering," he began, as soldiers muttered, gasped and straightened their spines as they heard the King address them directly. "Not least during such a bad winter. But, that's the very reason for our need for more men in armour - with bitter winds comes bitter news. We've no shortage of enemies who might seek to take advantage of the snows, so we need every good pair of eyes we can spare. Dale will remember your service!" He saluted the crowd, who responded with a roar of approval.

"Alright, you maggots," the sergeant barked, having borne the insult of common soldiers being treated like humans long enough. "Get to your stations!" The frozen air was filled with the clank and rattle of armour as hundreds of men, most of them as raw as fresh fish, turned and meandered in uncertain circles, trying to find their way to their section of the wall. "The Pride of Dale," the sergeant scoffed. Brand's eyes narrowed.

"They do me proud, Sir," he retorted, "to defend their city even though they aren't soldiers. Sixty years ago men did the same, with less, against a worse foe. It's their memory these men honour," he said, his point somewhat undermined by two soldiers running into each other in their confusion and knocking each other out with a resounding clang.

"Of course, Sire," the sergeant replied obsequiously, making himself scarce. Brand took a last look at his new regiment, his gaze momentarily caught by eyes he recalled but couldn't place. One of the new soldiers looked directly at him for a second, his face obscured by a thick balaclava beneath his helmet, before disappearing into a guard tower. Brand dismissed the feeling. Everyone in this city recognised him; it was, surely, only inevitable that it would occasionally work both ways.

Back in his study, Brand unclasped his cloak and groaned thankfully as the heat from the fire, stoked in his absence by some thoughtful servant, warmed his cold limbs. As the new recruits continued to learn the ropes far beneath his window, he sat at his desk and began to compose a couple of letters, the first for his counterpart in Erebor.

 _Hail Dáin, Lord of Erebor, King under the Mountain, King of Silver Fountains, Lord of Carven Stone,_ it began. Privately, Brand had always found the innumerable honorifics the Dwarf-king had gone by to be cringeworthy in the extreme. _Greetings to you in this wild and bitter season._ Brand replaced his quill in its inkwell and considered his next words carefully. Coaxing Dáin to do something he didn't want to do was not unlike trying to placate a charging bull. _Word has reached me that forces which would do us harm are gathering. I would like to take the opportunity to state that Dale's commitment to the defense of Erebor is as strong as ever. As of today, I have authorised the raising of additional levies to man our walls and swell our ranks. The glittering of our shields will shine across the valley. Yours, Brand, King of Dale._

That should do it, Brand thought. A subtle dig that Dale was arming for a potential war should spur Dáin on to outdo Brand's efforts, like a man who buys expensive clothes when his neighbours come into money. Sealing it with his mark, he set it aside and began writing a more personal, and more honest, letter.

 _Dwalin_ , he began. He laughed silently. No such titles here. _Regarding our mutual friend. I have made my first move. You should see it from across the valley almost immediately. I hope it has the desired effect. Yours, B._

This letter was folded and sealed, but Brand was careful not to mark the wax. Any indication that he was in secret communication with a member of Dáin's inner circle would lead to catastrophe for both parties, and both kingdoms. Almost immediately, he was seized by a strange pang of guilt. A king had to occasionally play his cards close to the chest, but in his many years of kingship he'd never done anything so...clandestine. It felt, he realised somewhat sadly, more akin to the workings of Denethor, brooding in his white tower hundreds of miles south, whom he had so recently criticised his son for resembling; perhaps father and son were more alike than they had suspected.

* * *

The caravan was in the third day of its journey and the known world was now far behind them. Yellow sands swirled ceaselessly about them, dusting the Dwarves' beards and stinging eyes. Interruptions to feed and water the exhausted oxen were frequent, and as the sun began to set the driver announced they would stop early to "attach the crawlers".

"May I be of assistance?" Tauriel asked, her voice muffled by a makeshift headscarf caked with sand. The driver regarded her with amusement.

"You'd just hurt yourself, darlin'," he replied. "Leave Dwarf work to Dwarves." Tauriel bristled, sitting cross-legged atop the lead wagon as the Dwarves unpacked large boxes filled with long metal plates, hooked and hinged on both ends. She watched with interest as the team performed a well-drilled routine of connecting the plates into a chain and fitting them over the wheels of the wagons, where they slotted neatly into deep grooves.

"What's the purpose of these...crawlers?" She asked the driver, who rolled his eyes as though it were the stupidest question he'd ever heard.

"Wheels sink in sand," he replied, as though she were a child. "You've got to spread the weight out. Not that a pointy-ear would know the first thing about that," he muttered, taking a swig from his ever-present hip flask. Tauriel elected against further attempts at conversation, instead watching the Dwarves complete their task in silence before calling it a day. After another helping of the same stew they'd been consisting on for three days, heavier than iron and almost as tasty, she left the Dwarves to collapse into their hammocks while she took - yet again - the night watch.

Nights in the desert, she'd learned, were cold. Not as bad as a Dale winter, but still enough to cut her to the bone. But like all Elves, she loved starlight; under its glow, she felt the chill begin to leave her body, suffusing her with the warmth of memory.

 _I always thought it is a cold light,_ she heard a voice call back to her from across an ocean of time. _Remote, and far away._

 _It is memory_ , she had told Kili all those years ago. _Precious and pure._

Precious and pure, she thought. That's exactly what it was. Like a gift from Elbereth herself, under the desert stars she heard Kili speak as clearly as if she were back in the Woodland Realm. A reminder of love. They had spoken in hushed whispers for hours; she of her love of the forest, he of all the places he had been. It was these moments which Tauriel had treasured the most; the realisation that, despite the fact she had lived six times longer than Kili, he had lived lifetime upon lifetime, experiencing everything Middle-Earth had to offer. Fire moons over Dunland, the spray of the sea pounding the Blue Mountains, the rolling hills of the Shire. It had planted the seed of her wanderlust, and it had brought her to the edge of the world.

She wondered what Kili would think if he could see her now. Dressed in leather and rags, her hair braided Erebor-style, earning her calluses alongside the common Dwarves that underpinned everything that made their society great. So far away from home, and so far away from the border guard with a point to prove she had been when they had met. She felt regret gnaw in her stomach as she recalled that first meeting; had she really been so haughty as to refuse a Dwarf in mortal danger a weapon? However did Kili see anything else in her but another self-absorbed Elf?

Tauriel's ears pricked up. A noise, unnatural, in the darkness. With Elven swiftness she spun onto her front and scanned the horizon. A thin wind whistled, sending sand cascading down the tall dunes around them like rain down glass. More noises Tauriel couldn't account for seemed to flicker at the edge of her perception, like a memory just out of reach. She reached back for her knife. As she closed her fingers around the handle an overwhelming silence descended; the silence, she knew from long experience, of lots of things doing their very best not to be heard.

A spark, a glimmer, appeared from the darkness. It seemed to hover in front of Tauriel's eyes for an eternity, before she rolled to her side and off the wagon, landing in a heap on the sand as a spear slammed into the roof with a splintering crack.

"We're being attacked!" Tauriel screamed. Wild ululations filled the air as more than a dozen dark figures descended the dunes, scattering sand in their path like an avalanche. Pulling herself to her feet, Tauriel launched herself into the path of the attackers and went to work with her knife. Burying it into the chest of the first figure she ran into, she spun his dying body around and winced as his comrade's slashing sword buried itself deep into his shoulder. Kicking her first victim off her knife and bowling the second off his feet, she dodged a spear thrust with a backwards bend, grabbed the shaft with both hands and spun around it, connecting with her attacker's face with both feet. Wresting the spear from his grasp as he fell, she cut a swathe through the other attackers now swarming her, unable to lay a single hand on her. As the black-clad figures began falling and dying in numbers, the remaining survivors decided the battle was lost, and began their retreat. They disappeared into the night as swiftly as they had arrived, with nothing to show for their attempt but corpses and scars. Tauriel's heavy breathing eventually slowed, and the cold of the desert night began to whip away the heat from her muscles.

"Durin's beard," a gruff voice from behind her muttered, horror-struck. "What...how?" Tauriel turned and saw, to some satisfaction, the driver standing in his long-johns as the rest of his team blearily shuffled behind him. He let out a scream as Tauriel hefted her spear and launched it towards him.

The Dwarves' eyes turned slowly to the head of the wagon, where a black-clad archer gurgled and flailed at the spear piercing his sternum before collapsing forward, his body sliding grotesquely down the shaft, stuck in the sand. One of the younger Dwarves tugged at the dead man's mask of scarves and revealed a young, skinny face the colour of the sand.

"Easterling bandits," he spat, kicking sand over the dead man's face. "Guess no-one told them not to fuck with Dwarves," he said, laughing boisterously before a heavy hand clumped him around the head. His comrades cast threatening looks in his direction, their shoulders slumped and cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Tauriel busied herself with cleaning her knife off and tried not to look in the Dwarves' direction; as the adrenaline wore off, she began to realise that in saving their lives, she may have increased their animosity towards her. Nothing in the world was more humiliating to a Dwarf than owing an Elf a debt.

"We should bury them," she said to the silent throng. The Dwarves slowly turned to regard her suspiciously. "Some got away. They'll tell their tribe what happened here. We need to cover our tracks."

"Sod that," a Dwarf piped up. "Let the bastards rot!" Murmurs of agreement passed around the group.

"Do it," the driver intoned quietly. His team fell silent. "Do as she says! Fetch shovels, you stinking half-wits!" His anger shocked the Dwarves into action, falling over themselves to fetch their tools from the wagon and begin the burial of the dead. He slowly trudged over to Tauriel, surreptitiously folding his arms against the cold. "Thank you," he muttered, almost reluctantly. Tauriel couldn't prevent a smile from growing over her face.

"Don't mention it," she replied, earnestly. "I told you - I'm here to work."

"I've buried too many Dwarves because of Easterling blades," he said, staring once more into the distance. "Every time I go out, I wonder - is this the one? Is this the run where I end up under a dune? And now," he scoffed, looking around at the bodies that littered the ground. The number of dead alone could have overpowered the sleeping Dwarves. "If you hadn't been with us..."

"You've plenty more runs left in you, old man," Tauriel replied reassuringly. The driver let out a rasping laugh.

"Kóla," he replied. "The name's Kóla."

"Pleasure," Tauriel said, laying a hand on his shoulder. Behind them, the Dwarves had returned with a bevy of tools and got to work doing what Dwarves do best - digging. Within mere seconds a huge hole had been opened up in the desert and the team got to unceremoniously kicking the corpses down its banks. As Kóla roused the oxen out of their wagon at the back of the train, the Dwarves finished filling in the mass grave and patted it down with the stamping of their heavy feet. After a few minutes they were back on the road, Tauriel navigating by starlight, and for the first time all journey, the driver didn't say a word.

* * *

Dwalin received his letter from Brand rather more quickly than Dáin did; all correspondence to the King, even when it bore a royal seal, had to pass through several thorough security checks before it troubled his eyes. Had he known beforehand how Dáin would react, Dwalin would almost certainly have appreciated those few days of relative peace and quiet a little more.

"Arrogant little prick!" Dáin thundered from the walls of Erebor, crushing the letter in a white-knuckled fist. "Commitment to our defense, eh? Defend this!" He bellowed out towards Dale, thrusting his hand, curled in an obscene gesture, out towards the city. "Thinks we need defending," he growled. "The bloody gall."

"Sire, I'm sure Brand meant nothing of the sort," Dwalin attempted to smooth the King's ruffled feathers. "He's surely only referring to our mutual defence pact." Dáin chuckled mirthlessly, shaking his head as he leaned over the ramparts.

"Dwalin, old son," he replied as he slowly tore the letter into strips, "you'll never learn this yourself, so I might as well enlighten you: men like Brand know exactly what they're doing when they set quill to paper. Every word they write has been thought about ten times before they write it, and another ten times after. He knows _exactly_ what he's saying," he growled, casting the scraps of paper out onto the moat like confetti.

"You can't deny, though, surely," Dwalin replied as Dáin stormed down the stone staircase to the main concourse of Erebor, his subjects giving him a wide berth the moment they clocked his incandescent fury, "that his heart is in the right place. He's taken the advice I've given him and made a positive step forward."

"Positive?" Dáin laughed, incredulously. "Where do you think he's found all those extra soldiers? Do you think he had him hidden up his arse all this time?" Dwalin bit his lip in frustration. "No, Dwalin, he's heard what you've said, shat himself and stuck the first poor sods to stick their hands up into armour and shoved 'em to the front of the line. They're no' like us," he muttered. "No' soldiers."

"Am I to take it you will not be honouring his commitment to our mutual safety?" Dwalin asked. Dáin stopped dead, turning slowly around.

"Oh, I'll honour it, alright," Dáin replied mockingly. "That cart of emeralds that's leaving tomorrow? Well, wouldn't you know it - we had a cave-in just last week. Terrible tragedy, can't fill the order, deepest regrets, et cetera, et cetera." He shrugged helplessly as Dwalin's mouth dropped in shock. "See how he likes that," Dáin hissed, flicking his long, grey hair over his shoulder as he turned back and strode back to his sanctuary and, no doubt, his new jacuzzi.

Dwalin stood dumbstruck for a good few minutes. He knew Dáin could punch below the belt but he'd never suspected his King of being so petty. They both knew there had been no cave-in; this was just a childish overreaction to an imagined slight. It appeared that not only had Dwalin and Brand's plan failed, it had backfired spectacularly and antagonised the increasingly flighty King Under the Mountain further.

Upon returning to his quarters, Dwalin locked the door and immediately dashed off a note. _B,_ he began. _Our friend is unmoved. Angry, even. Those emeralds you asked for won't be coming now. Consider your next move carefully. We must meet again soon. D._ Affixing the letter to the ankle of Brand's personal raven, after some days now desperate to get out of the mine, he opened his door and threw it out to return to its master. As the flapping of the raven's wings receded, Dwalin sat down on his bed and ran his hands over his bald head in frustration. When Sauron did come, it wasn't inconceivable that he'd find Erebor and Dale already at war with each other.

* * *

For three days following the assault, life on the caravan was tense and unsmiling. The Dwarves sang no songs and drank no ale, forever on tenterhooks as to whether one day they'd look up and see an entire Easterling tribe rearing over the sand dunes to extract their revenge. Tauriel had spent even longer hours scanning the horizon atop the wagons, out of a strange kind of guilt; perhaps, she thought, if she hadn't repulsed the Easterling attack so comprehensively, the wagon would have avoided the bullseye it surely had on it now. Then again, had she not been there, there was little doubt that right now it would be the bodies of Dwarves left to dry and shrivel beneath the sand. It was an awful pride to bear.

Allowing herself a brief respite, she sat beside Kóla and watched as the oxen trudged their way hypnotically through the sand. The rumble of wheels and the lurching of the wagons, at first so difficult to attune to, had become second nature to her, like a new sailor finding his sea-legs. For all the hard work, brutal weather and worse food she had had to endure, Tauriel found herself concluding that this had been a worthwhile experience.

Kóla wordlessly thrust a canteen towards her, and Tauriel accepted with a long drink. She was almost surprised to realise it was only water. "Keep it," Kóla replied as she offered it back to him. "Won't need it soon." She regarded the old Dwarf suspiciously. He turned to her with a twinkle in his grey eye. "We're here."

The caravan reached the crest of a dune and an entirely new world seem to spread out beneath them. Tauriel got to her feet in amazement as a sight she never thought possible greeted her eyes; far beneath them, yellow walls twenty yards high encircled a sprawling chaos of a city, the life and activity within it sending plumes of dust and smoke into the air as though it were quietly smouldering. Sharp-pointed towers shot into the sky like fireworks frozen mid-flight, an endless procession of carts funnelled into and out of the city from dozens of different roads and gates, and bright-sailed caravels set out from the harbour to the south, sailing over a massive inland sea to countries even more obscure. The noise, the clamouring of a dozen different tongues which Tauriel had never before heard, whispered to her over the great distance still to travel like a desert mirage, beckoning her into the unknown.

"Congratulations, She-Elf," Kóla said as Tauriel's lips spread wide in a hysterical grin, "you're the first of your kind to look upon this land in an Age. Welcome to Astǎr."


	8. Impressions

The caravan trundled along a wide thoroughfare up to the gates of Astăr, flanked by rows of ditches and stakes pointed outwards from the city, like lines of pikemen braced for assault. The thick, high walls of the city blocked out almost all noise from it, leaving just the creaking of the wheels and stamp of the oxens' hooves. In the hot, stifling wagons, the Dwarves waited, peering nervously out of barred portholes.

"This is the only road into Astăr from the West," an old Dwarf said into the empty air. "They have no enemies to the East; just fellow worshippers of the Dark Lord. But the West...the West has only ever brought them war." Tauriel nodded. The Dwarves had, in the days since they had started to appreciate her, taken it upon themselves to explain things she couldn't have possibly known without prompting or thanks; an unspoken courtesy to a fellow worker.

"Are we welcome?" Tauriel asked as spears buried point-up in the sand started to crawl past their view. Dozens of miscellaneous bones gathered at their bases, remnants of impalements past.

"Oh, yes," the Dwarf replied. "We'rewelcome. You might not be." His words almost flew by Tauriel, who only caught them after a moment.

"What do you mean, might not be?" She asked, eyeing the bones warily. How many of the bleached white spars had once belonged to Elves?

"Oh, not you yourself," the Dwarf replied, "just...you know. Your kind. It's nothing personal," he reassured her, patting her hand. Tauriel let out a deep, long sigh. _This is the East_. Grain's bitter, mocking face came back to her. _It's always dangerous._

She could hear Kóla, in the driver's seat, treating with the gatekeeper in a harsh, aggressive tongue she didn't recognise. It had many of the same sounds and intonations as Khuzdul, which she understood well, but seemed to be an entirely different language. After a few rounds of back-and-forth she heard the sound of creaking wood and groaning metal, and a growing tumult of voices. The gates of Astăr were open.

Crossing the threshold of the the city, the gateway to the East, was like parting the curtain on a private party. The sound of laughter, haggling, boasting, arguing and flirting exploded into the wagons, assaulting them on all sides with a riot of life. Hundreds of unfamiliar smells filled Tauriel's nostrils, hot and angry; the wail and drone of unknown instruments buffeted her ears; and through the portholes she could see colours as varied and vibrant as any Elven hall or Dwarven chamber in grand array. Far from a monochrome mass of anonymous serfs, as she had expected to find everywhere east of the Iron Hills, the inhabitants of Astăr wore long, flowing gowns and robes in a multitude of colours - not much unlike the apparel of her own race. For every loinclothed, callused peasant that passed by the caravan, she saw another dripping in gold and swathed in finery.

"My stars," Tauriel breathed, incredulous, barely risking to raise her voice above a whisper. She may have been in the territory of the Enemy, but the diverse and vivacious crowd that surrounded could not have felt further from the wretched bandits they'd left buried beneath the sand.

The caravan slowly rolled to a stop and the Dwarves exited, beginning the process of unloading the wagons with all the swiftness and intensity with which they had loaded them. Tauriel made her way to the door but tarried in the shadow a while; the old Dwarf's warning played on her mind. The sound of a throat being cleared behind her caught her attention. "Miss...er...Elf," said a younger Dwarf with a bowl-shaped haircut that reminded her of Orí. "I thought you might want this." He handed a bundle of cloth over to her, sheepishly. "It's a fire-mask," he explained as Tauriel unwrapped the bundle. "It's used for smelting." Initially worried that the Dwarf had enormously misunderstood Tauriel's reason for visiting Astăr, she understood when she saw his offering. It was a tight cloth cap which rolled down to the neck, with small slits cut out for eye-holes. It would disguise her perfectly. It had been wrapped in a deep red scarf, which would also work perfectly as a headdress to help her further blend in. "Old Nód said you wouldn't be welcome," the young Dwarf explained, hands behind his back and staring downwards. "So I thought if you looked like a local, you might be a bit…" He trailed off, abashed.

"Thank you," Tauriel said with genuine appreciation, before laughing spontaneously. "It's funny...I've lived alongside Dwarves for over half a century but I never imagined they could be so...thoughtful." She immediately regretted her words as the young Dwarf looked crestfallen.

"Mother says I'm not like most Dwarves," he said sadly. Tauriel grasped his hand.

"And that's no bad thing," she replied. "I'm not like most Elves, am I?" She said with a cheeky smile. The young Dwarf laughed nervously, fiddling with a rat's-tail queue in the back of his hair.

"That's why I came on the caravan," he said. "I thought it'd make me a real Dwarf." Tauriel frowned sympathetically, checked they were not overheard and sat down close to him.

"What's your name?" She asked him in Khuzdul. The young Dwarf regarded her with a mixture of shock and awe.

"Noí," he replied. Tauriel was surprised. Dwarves often kept their names secret to outsiders, even those who spoke their tongue.

"You have a good Dwarven name," she replied, slipping back into the Common Tongue. "And you did something brave, even though it scared you. You sound like a real Dwarf to me." Noí blushed and bowed before scampering out of the wagon to go and help his comrades; probably before they started accusing him of trying to woo her. Donning her mask and headdress, Tauriel stepped out of the wagon and beheld a bazaar of such scale as to put Dale and Erebor to shame.

A forest of columns, each five times her height, stretched out in every direction, with canopies strung between them providing relief from the bright sun and cloudless sky. A thousand different stalls occupied the space, offering every kind of luxury imaginable; fish from the inland sea which had started to stink with the lateness of the day, fabrics of a thousand hues inlaid with gold, silver and gems, metalworks from forges the West had never seen, and even some wine she recognised immediately as Thranduil's own - trade had not just opened up Mirkwood to the North; it had opened it up to the whole world. A sea of people milled back and forth along the aisles; some shopping, some wandering, and some just there to watch the world go by. Some of them cast Tauriel a glance, but none looked twice. She let go of a breath she had been holding since she exited the wagon. Her disguise was sufficient.

"I'm not sure what you're here for," Kóla said, mopping his brow, "but I wouldn't guess it's sightseeing." Tauriel smiled beneath her hood.

"Thanks for getting me this far, Kóla," she replied. "From here on out, my business is my own." The hook-nosed Dwarf nodded in understanding. "When do we return to Grom?"

"A week," Kóla said, "or when we sell out all our wares; whichever comes first." Tauriel nodded.

"So, a week, then."

Kóla let out sly, guttural laugh and gave Tauriel a playful swipe in the midriff. As he head away to organise his workers in setting up their stalls, Tauriel felt the smile no-one could see drop away by degrees. Away from these Dwarves, who despite their own best efforts had become her firm friends, Tauriel was now always at risk. She was behind enemy lines. Steeling herself, she adjusted her scarf and walked out of the bazaar, looking to lose herself in the endless labyrinth of Astăr.

* * *

Dwalin sat in the small room which passed for his office in the highest tower of the gatehouse, stewing over deliberately unfinished paperwork. The King's seal, an obnoxious hexagon of glittering gold, stared back at him. He had not spoken to Dáin since the King had received Brand's missive and responded so ungraciously to it, and the tension between the two of them was noticeable to even the meanest-minded Dwarf. A gust of cold wind blew through the window, making Dwalin shiver and draw his fur coat a little tighter around his shoulders. _Getting old_ , he thought bitterly. Just ten years ago he wouldn't have even felt it. He cast his eye out of the window. Far to the south of Dale, a black cloud lingered at the tip of the horizon: Mordor.

"Running out of time," he muttered to himself. "All of us, running out of time."

A knock at the door brought his attention back to the room. "Come," he said gruffly. Harod shuffled in, his fat face flushed red from having to climb the stairs to Dwalin's high office. "Catch your breath, son," Dwalin told him before Harod could even attempt to say a word. The young Dwarf nodded thankfully and bent double, taking a few deep lungfuls of air.

"Relief," he gasped, "front gate - hasn't come, Sir."

Dwalin hunched over his desk, annoyed. "You've come all the way up here, all the way to _me_ , to complain about your relief being late?" Harod shook his head, still catching his breath. "You should have taken this to your captain."

"Not...not there, Sir," Harod replied. "Couldn't find him. Everyone...gone." Harod's eyes, wide and wet, locked with Dwalin's. Dwalin cooled. He was already angry, and he knew he was just taking it out on the lad.

"Gone?" He repeated. Harod nodded.

"I went for a...erm," Harod mumbled. "In the moat. Couldn't wait." Dwalin rolled his eyes. "Came back and the gate room was empty. Thought nothing of it...till my relief didn't turn up." Harod looked left and right before saying in almost a whisper, "I think I'm alone down there." Dwalin regarded him with disbelief for a second, before lapsing into laughter.

"Harod," he said, rising from his seat, "if it gets me out of this bloody office, then sure - I'll look under your bed for you. Maybe we'll find ourselves a goblin." Harod smiled, embarrassed, and the two began the long walk down to the main gate.

The journey was disconcerting. The gatehouse was supposed to have a full company of soldiers in it at all times, but not once did they run into another soul, nor hear anything but the flicker and crackle of burning braziers and the echo of their own footsteps. By the time they reached the main gate, they could have sworn Smaug had returned unnoticed and emptied Erebor once more.

"Bloody outrageous," Dwalin growled. "Don't know what this bloody army is coming to. I'll go see if I can dig up any answers - you stay here," he ordered Harod. "I'll not leave this gatehouse undefended."

Harod shuffled uneasily. "Begging your pardon, Sir, but," he stammered, "it's...it's just me." Dwalin planted a hand on Harod's shoulder.

"The safest gate in Middle-Earth is one held by but one Dwarf," he said. Harod breathed deeply and stood to attention.

"Yes, Sir," he replied. With a nod, Dwalin set off inside the mountain to look for his missing company.

* * *

Tauriel had visited many cities of Men in her time as an ambassador of the Woodland Realm, and all of them had a certain wildness and vigour - even Minas Tirith, capital of Gondor and supposedly the pinnacle of their civilisation, had shocked her with its squalor. Dale, of course, was no Minas Tirith - with even its king just a generation removed from poverty, it was a city of coarse yet earnest people, and a place where she quickly learned to keep her arms firmly by her sides. Astăr made Dale look like Hobbiton by comparison.

Masses of people thronged down narrow streets flanked by tall mud-brick buildings where people sat in doorways or hung out of windows, calling out to neighbours or jeering passers-by. Exotic tongues filled the air with a wall of noise so intense Tauriel could barely hear herself think. Momentarily, the thick crowd she walked in would condense further as people made way for Easterling soldiers on patrol, wearing full armour and helmets which only revealed their eyes, or mysterious figures in black robes walking single-file, chanting ominously. With no map or guide, Tauriel turned left and right at random, trusting the flow of people to get her somewhere important eventually. At one point she found herself chuckling beneath her hood, quite charmed with the hectic yet carefree pace of life in Astăr, letting herself float along through the crowd and drinking it all in. After almost an hour of very slow wandering - including a long interlude spent trying to backtrack after an overturned cart blocked one road - she eventually emerged into a large square lined with tall, slender trees, and dotted with orange flowers. A fountain bubbled quietly in the middle of the square, where citizens cooled their feet or simply sat and rested. It was packed yet peaceful, with children in rags chasing each other between the trees and old men sitting on the floor rolling dice. Tauriel stopped a moment and took in the scene. She had been wrong, she thought to herself. The East was not some savage, lawless den of evil - these were real people; some good, some bad, but all real, and alive.

A strange droning noise caught her attention. At the opposite side of the square, another group of the strange figures in black robes entered from another street, the crowd parting before them without effort or command. Her curiosity piqued, Tauriel moved around the outer edge of the square to see through the lines of trees and get closer to them. They were walking single-file, like before, with the figure at the head of the procession holding a large, curved dagger upright in his hands. Behind him, two more figures carried a stake on their shoulders between them; tied to it, a live but seemingly unconcerned goat. Tauriel got a dark feeling. Increasing her pace, she moved out from behind the line of trees and gasped at what she saw.

A large crowd was gathered around a statue at the far side of the square, parting and kneeling as the figures in black approached. The statue was tall, more than twice her height, and in contrast to the terracotta tones of the city all around them was a deep, lustrous black, possibly carved out of a single piece of volcanic rock. Two grasping hands with clawed fingers stretched forwards, reaching out as if to possess the whole world, or to wring a giant throat. Vicious armour across the entire figure jutted out at its edges to create demonic spikes and barbs, topped with a nine-horned helmet and empty, hollow eyes.

In the language of her people, the Silvan Elves, he was _Gorthaur_. To the Sindarin, and the rest of Middle-Earth, he was Sauron. The Enemy.

The goat was lain on the ground and its hooves unbound from the stake. It barely stirred other than to arch its head back senselessly, before it was grabbed by the horns and shepherded gracelessly, though without protest, to the foot of the statue. Tauriel scowled, suspecting it had been drugged. The lead figure raised his knife to the statue hilt-first, as though offering it to him.

" _Shara hai Zigur-ishi!_ "

Tauriel felt nauseous, like she'd been punched in the stomach - no, worse, like she had been poisoned. The knife-bearer spoke the Black Speech of Mordor; a tongue of such malevolence and incipit evil that even to hear it was deleterious to an Elf. The crowd, kowtowing before Sauron's statue, repeated the phrase in unison. The lead figure took the knife firmly in hand and drove it into the goat's neck, which finally displayed some kind of life; kicking and screaming, it tried futilely to escape while the knife was worried further and further around its throat, disgorging great gouts of blood in every direction; some on the feet of the statue, some on the crowd, but most on the hands and robes of its killer. Within seconds its struggles had decreased to a weak, pathetic kicking of its hind limbs, before finally falling still.

" _Burzum-ishi krimpatul!_ "

Tauriel stumbled backwards with the force of his words; dripping head to toe in gore, the lead figure turned away from the statue and raised his hands forward, mimicking the statue's pose. Now facing her, Tauriel could see the ruin that was his face; beneath his hood, her Elf-eyes could make out his pinched face, thin lips, and veins of black running down from his temples. The evil of Sauron seemed to have infected him like a plague. The crowd repeated his words and stayed on their knees, foreheads touching the ground, as the black-robed figures silently returned the way they came. Once they were a good distance away the crowd fell upon the goat and the statue as a single, ravenous mass, desperately touching palms or fingertips to the blood dripping down the statue's legs and anointing their faces with it with a look of religious ecstasy, and even tearing the poor creature's remains to pieces like a pack of wolves and chewing on its still-warm meat. Tauriel, already nauseous from the Black Speech, now feared she actually would vomit. She turned away and leaned on the wall, breathing heavily. Behind her in the square, children still ran, old men still played, people still cooled their feet.

Tauriel could not let herself be seduced by either the luxury or the homeliness of this city. This was still Sauron's city; these were still his thralls. Whether they were devotees like the writhing mass who jostled to lick the blood of goats from his statue's feet, or simply those so inured that such a spectacle wasn't even worth getting up from their game for, Sauron had wormed his way into the hearts of every man, woman and child in Astăr. Thousands of years of indoctrination would not be undone by one Elf in disguise; Tauriel could not expect any aid from within these walls.

When her nausea had subsided, Tauriel straightened up and began thinking about where to head next. Having gotten some kind of a bearing about the city, she felt confident she could explore a little further and make her way back to the bazaar by sundown. She had done enough sightseeing; now it was time to work. As she exited the square, the statue of Sauron caught her eye unwillingly, drawing her attention to it until it had passed out of sight, blinding her to the dark figure who followed her.

* * *

Dwalin wasn't just getting old - he was going mad.

After an hour's ceaseless wandering the halls and passages of Erebor, that was the conclusion he had come to. In all that time, he hadn't encountered a single other Dwarf. Strange thoughts popped in and out of his head with every empty room, every silent corridor - was he dead? Had he succumbed to the cold in his office, and been cursed to walk the empty halls of Erebor until Dagor Dagorath with only Hador for company?

 _No_ , thought Dwalin. _I can't have been_ _ **that**_ _bad._

He walked past a doorway into the throne room, as empty as every other part of the mountain, and stopped. The throne was a twinkling sliver of mithril and gold carved from a mighty stalactite, with an empty slot carved above it. In days gone by it would hold the Arkenstone, its beauty and brilliance radiating out onto the Dwarves of Erebor, leaving no doubt as to who was the King Under the Mountain. Today, the Arkenstone lay sealed in Thorin's tomb, the dead king cupping it tenderly between his hands. It hadn't been simply whimsy or sentiment; it was a moment of reckoning for the Dwarven race. Lust for the Arkenstone would never again stir up such resentment and violence between the Free Peoples as Thorin had done, and even the Dwarves had to acknowledge that some things - peace, brotherhood, loyalty - were worth more than even the finest gem ever hewn.

Memories came flooding back to Dwalin of another time he had stood in the throne room, alone but for Thorin. While the Battle of Five Armies raged outside, Thorin had sat, impotent and dragon-sick, in a throne which still bore the scars of Smaug's attack and occupation. Trying to convince Thorin to go to Dáin's aid, Dwalin had been threatened with death and cast out. Dwalin sighed and leaned against the wall. It seemed to him that he had spent too much of his life trying to talk sense into mad kings, and as much as he wished to avoid Dáin, it seemed he had nowhere else to go.

Making his way up to Dáin's luxurious chambers, he was unsurprised to find the braziers lit and hear the sound of running water; it would reflect well his recent disinterest in the world at large to be relaxing in his tub while Erebor emptied around him. In a dark mood, he climbed a gilded spiral staircase up to Dáin's bathroom, hammering on the door before entering anyway. "I don't suppose you'd know where any of your subjects are, your Ma-"

A high-pitched squeal cut Dwalin off abruptly. Morn, Dáin's chubby and obsequious adjutant, sat with his beard parted and pinned up into his hair lounging in a deep bath, surrounded by bubbles. He shepherded the mounds of suds around him to hide his nudity, knocking a glass of wine into the water.

"Please," Dwalin said quietly, eyeing the bubbling water, "tell me Dáin _isn't_ here." Morn's lip curled in contempt.

"His Majesty is indisposed," Morn said peevishly. "And you are trespassing!"

"Sure he is," Dwalin replied softly. "But what about the rest of Erebor? Where are they, hm?" Morn's face was already ruddy from the heat of his bath, but the way he averted his gaze and fiddled nervously with the bubbles protecting his modesty told Dwalin all he needed to know. "Dáin know you sneak off to his private bathroom when he's not around?" Dwalin asked, running a rough hand along a towel of exquisite softness and warmth.

"Being in the king's favour affords its privileges," Morn said, fishing the bottle of wine from behind the tub and re-filling his soapy glass. "Not that you'd know," he breathed sarcastically, raising the glass to his lips. With a sudden crack it shattered in his hand, showering him in shards and rich-smelling wine. Morn let out another yelp and almost jumped right out of the bath.

Dwalin pulled the towel taut in his hands like a garotte. "What's going on?" He asked. Morn shook his head fearfully as Dwalin held the towel in one outstretched hand and began to spin it, faster and faster, before letting it crack in the air inches from Morn's face. Morn let out a cry of horror and threw his hands up, far too late.

"You're lucky I'm getting old, Morn," Dwalin barked. He continued to spin the towel faster, teasing a second crack of the whip, until Morn finally broke.

"You weren't to be told!" He squealed, hiding his face in his hands.

"Told what?" Dwalin pressed him, throwing the towel down and looming over the bath. Morn sniffled pitifully.

"Dáin issued a decree," he explained. "All Dwarves were to drop everything and congregate in the forge, and await further instructions...except for you," he said, shamefaced. He slid down in the bath until only his head appeared above the water.

"And why are they in the forge?" Dwalin asked, leaning further and further over the bath until his face almost touched Morn's. Morn huffed and crossed his arms.

"Go and find out," he grumbled, looking away.

"Yes," Dwalin replied. "Let's!" Grabbing Morn's pinned beard like a horse's bridle, Dwalin wrestled the squealing Dwarf out of the bath and deposited him onto his rear on the floor, naked and soapy. "You might want this," he dead-panned, throwing a richly-decorated dressing-gown into Morn's red face.

In slippers and dressing-gown, Morn led Dwalin down staircase after staircase, heading deeper and deeper into the heart of the mountain until - after some minutes - the sound of voices could be heard. "I suppose you can you make your own way from here," Morn said miserably, head bowed and shoulders hunched like a cowed dog.

"Now, what kind of hospitality is that?" Dwalin countered sarcastically, twisting Morn's ear until he hopped from foot to foot, squealing and protesting. "Lead on!" He pushed Morn forward towards a staircase which glowed red from the fires of forges beneath it. With a whimper, Morn led him down the last set of stairs.

Dwalin could hardly comprehend what he saw. The entire population of Erebor had crammed itself into the forge, and every last one of them was busy with some task or another; some arranging huge and intricate molds, some manning the pulleys and conveyers which snaked around the forge like spiders on their webs; some forming living chains which ferried ore and fuel from one place to another faster than a wheelbarrow, and some jumping up and down on the bellows in groups of ten to fan the flames to white heat. He had never seen an entire Dwarven city brought together to man the furnaces, nor even heard of it happening since the days of Nogrod and the war with Thingol.

"Yes," Dwalin hissed. "Yes!" He roared, punching the air. Such an undertaking could only mean one thing; Erebor was preparing for war on a scale hitherto unimagined. "Where's Dáin?" He asked Morn. Morn pointed glumly to a catwalk across the way from them. From it, Dáin looked down and surveyed his Kingdom at work. Dwalin rushed off towards him, and Morn slinked away to start the long climb upwards.

"Dáin!" Dwalin called out as he came close to him. "Your Majesty," he added with a bow as Dáin turned to regard him, his face inscrutable.

"Dwalin," Dáin greeted him, stretching out an arm. "Come, come." The King laid a hand on Dwalin's shoulder as he came to his side. "Perhaps," he began, "perhaps I was too hasty to dismiss the threat to Erebor."

Dwalin let out a long, deep sigh of relief. "As you say, Sir," he replied noncommittally.

"We have enemies," Dáin continued. "Many enemies. And they may come sooner rather than later. So it's best we're prepared."

"Quite right, Sir," Dwalin agreed, feeling a huge weight in his stomach lessen and loosen. "What kind of armaments have you ordered? I can have the soldiers kitted out in two days, improvements to the battlements in a week." Dáin smiled. It was avuncular yet patronising, like a parent humouring their child's suppositions.

"Weapons are all well and good, but you know what's stronger than a shield, sharper than a sword?" Dáin asked. "Belief." Dwalin frowned slightly, confused. "Look at them," he chuckled. "Scurrying hither and thither like ants on a mound. They're not a people, Dwalin, they're a...a machine," he hissed intensely.

"What are they making, Sire?" Dwalin asked, a seed of worry growing at the back of his mind. The Dáin he knew was a blunt, straightforward person, not taken to grand speeches and philosophical musings. Dáin smiled.

"Wait," he replied. "Watch."

A large gap opened up in the mass of Dwarves below as an enormous crucible, filled with bubbling, molten metal, swung across the forge and was gingerly tipped over until a cascade of golden fire poured out and filled a long series of trenches, each containing a mold. One by one flames rose from holes drilled in their frames as the wax within was incinerated and the molten metal flowed to fill the gap. Once the fires had died down, Dwarves rushed to the trenches to start digging out the molds and smashing them open with huge hammers. Dáin rubbed his hands with glee as the first casting was unveiled and presented to the king.

"What?" Dwalin muttered, confounded. "What is this?" Another mold was broken open, and another yellow glint lit up the forge.

"The outer wall will be covered in them," Dáin explained, either ignoring Dwalin's tone of concern or deaf to it, "and they'll line every passageway." Molds were now being broken at a rate of one a second, disgorging their contents in a glow of golden light.

"This is a joke," he stammered, staring at Dáin, who grinned with glee. "This is madness!"

"This is belief!" Dáin shot back, suddenly furious. "This is what belief can do! A whole city coming together, because they believe in their King!"

"They are your subjects," Dwalin growled. "They're doing as their King has commanded them - belief has nothing to do with this! They'd cast themselves into the furnaces if you told them to!" Dáin fixed Dwalin with a poisonous look.

"Would they now?" He replied, smiling nastily. "I'll keep that in mind." Silence rent the two asunder, thrust upwards like a mountain range. Speechless, Dwalin turned and walked away. Dáin gazed back down on the forges, its floor glowing gold. Staring back up at him were hundreds of casts of his own face, furrow-browed and grim in aspect. An arresting depiction of his unbreakable will.

"Believe me," Dáin whispered to himself, running his thumb along a fat ring on his finger. "Believe."

* * *

The sun was still up, but Tauriel was shrouded in darkness. Her wanderings had taken her deeper and deeper into the city, to its very oldest quarters, where the alleyways were almost impassably narrow and ancient buildings sagged and twisted, leaning together like drunks or looming over the road like vultures over a dying animal. They shut out the light as completely as a forest canopy, casting her path not in the dappled green of her home but the utter blackness of shadow. From the smell of rotting fish, she surmised she must be somewhere close to the docks. But even without the stink, the air felt fouler here, close and riven with ill-intent. Eyes stared at her from open windows before disappearing. This is what Tauriel had come for. To learn of the dark, she had to seek out dark places.

Everywhere, she saw the mark of the Eye - daubed on walls and doors, carved into stone at crossroads. To call the worship of Sauron a cult, or even religion, would be to diminish its reach; in Astăr it was sunk into the very foundations, as inescapable as the glare of the sun and just as punishing.

She walked past an alleyway where two men, one bald and burly, the other as skinny as an orc and just as ill-favoured, were counting coins surreptitiously. She moved swiftly along but knew that her eyes had locked with theirs a fraction of a second too long. Sure enough, after a few seconds she heard their feet padding down the cobbles behind her. She had no idea what she had stumbled in on, but from the urgency of their steps she guessed it was something they were willing to kill for.

This was no trouble for a Silvan Elf. Even in such unfamiliar territory, losing a trail of two common cutthroats would be child's play; she could have heard their graceless, oafish footsteps from the moon. Making a swift left turn, she increased her pace. Her pursuers inevitably sped up to catch her, just as she had planned. Ducking into a culvert, she leapt vertically and braced herself against each side of the wall, some dozen or so feet up. They would never see her up so high, and in their haste would run straight past her, leaving her free to descend and double-back without issue.

She heard two pairs of feet round the corner. In her mind's eye, she could place them exactly; they were coming towards her at just the speed she had anticipated. But suddenly, one of the pairs of feet stopped, followed not long thereafter by the second. Tauriel worried. Had they worked out her ruse and were now planning to corner her? The second pair of feet then walked back in the direction they had came, far less urgent, almost tentatively; and then nothing. Silence stretched out for long, awkward seconds as Tauriel tried to make sense of what she had heard. Finally, she dropped back down to the ground and peeked out.

The street was empty. Nonplussed, Tauriel exited the culvert entirely and replayed what she had heard in her mind. Her pursuers hadn't simply given up and left - she would have heard them walking back, and their footsteps had simply stopped as if they had vanished into thin air. She slowly walked back the way she had come, hand gripping the knife she had secreted into her jerkin, to check they weren't hiding around the corner and waiting to skewer her.

A loud, wet thud behind her set off her instincts. Drawing the knife and turning with lightning speed, she gasped and stepped backwards at the mangled mess at her feet; her pursuers, throats cut and bled like pigs, lay broken and twisted on the cobblestones, evidently dropped from a great height. Senses heightened with shock, a soft pat on the ground behind her was all it took for her to turn again and thrust her knife into whatever was there.

A tall figure caught her thrust between crossed wrists and forced her arm up. As the two struggled together, Tauriel trying to withdraw her sword-arm and her assailant trying to force her backwards, she took in all she could; they were swaddled in black from head to toe, their face even more obscured than Tauriel's with their eyes hidden behind a gauze, wore no insignia or symbols, and no armour but for leather greaves and bracers. Pushing them back with a hard strike from her palm, Tauriel again went at her attacker, but her swipes were dodged or parried expertly. As she lunged angrily, the figure in black sidestepped and spun around her, reversing their positions. Tauriel was both confused and infuriated - who was this strange assassin who could easily withstand the force and skill of an Elf, but who seemingly had no interest in killing her? As she charged once more, a cry made her freeze.

" _Lar!_ "

The figure held its hands up in supplication. Tauriel's head span; not just because the warrior she had entirely failed to wound was surrendering to her, but that he had done it in the tongue of her ancestors.

"Quenya?" Tauriel blurted out in exhausted astonishment. She furrowed her brow, reliving memories of her schooldays to find her words in a language none of her kind had spoken in millennia. " _Manen?_ " She said at length. How? " _Man tye?_ " Who are you?

Her assailant pulled off their hood, and Tauriel stiffened like she had seen a ghost. Long black hair, thick and matted, fell down a pinched, almost jaundiced face with cheekbones so sharp they were almost horns, sunken grey eyes, and a sparse, wiry beard. She would have mistaken him for an Easterling had it not been for those unmistakable pointed ears.

"You," Tauriel breathed in shock, "you can't exist. You're a myth. A story to scare children with. You're-"

" _Avari_. The Unwilling. We are real, Westerner," he said, segueing into a heavily-accented version of the Common Tongue. "I don't know what you are doing in Astăr, but it cannot bode well when one of your kind ventures so far into Rhûn." Pulling off a glove, he offered his right hand. "I am Ör."

Tauriel stared at Ör's hand dumbly for a second, distracted by the thought of how many hundreds of thousands of years had passed since these two worlds had met. Gingerly, she clasped it.

"Tauriel."


End file.
